Golden Chain Tree

Dark clouds hung above West Coast Park gathering intensity by the minute. A huge crowd of students converged on the park for a school running event and the carpark in front of MacDonalds was jammed with parents unloading their kids dressed in PE attire from their cars. The portion of West Coast Highway next to the park was also lined with slow moving vehicles caused by the excessive presence of cars at the park.

Everyone focused on making his or her way to the tents set up in the large field within the park. I took a gamble that I would be able to walk around the park once and see things in a different light without being caught in the rain.

As I walked towards the park I saw a few of these trees all decked out in golder showers of flowers looking like Christmas trees dripping with ornaments. I stopped, as usual to take some shots. They were below my expectation in terms of quality and I blame the poor lighting caused by the impending heavy downpour. I also realised that the camera has a shortcoming that was overshadowed by the other features. It has a very limited aperture range and that made manual focusing not as desirable as it should be.

Lophanthera lactescens

Family: Malpighiaceae
Common Name: Golden Chain Tree
Origin: Brazil, Uruguay

Barringtonia racemosa

When I saw this tree dangling with clusters of delicate flowers and young fruits I counted this chance discovery as a blessing because it was the first time that I was a witness to a single tree in full bloom. I forgot about the heat of the sun's rays on my face and back. I just wanted to capture these moments before the flowers drop to the ground as time passed by. A few big, black bees flitted from flower to flower and as I circled the tree to admire these lovely pink flowers through my camera lens and to freeze their beauty for eternity I also noticed that more and more of these flowers were falling to the ground. When I had taken enough photos to document the life of this tree for that particular hour, the base of the tree was carpeted with these flowers. An hour made so much difference to me, to the tree because time is cruel and beauty does not last forever in real life.