20. Silk Tree

Tree Tour

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Silk Tree's showy blossoms during the sweltering height of summer makes up for its tardiness to waken from winter dormancy. The rarefied lightness of its frondlike leaflets, and its bright pink flower puffs, make it unmistakable. A large old specimen is on your left as you enter the HUB lawn area, and a younger one to the right. Silk Tree is so named from its threadlike flowers, and is unrelated to the mulberry tree from which silk is produced. Other names are pink acacia and mimosa tree. It is native over much of Asia, and now grows wild in the eastern U.S., where it was introduced in 1785. Although it produces many seedpods in Seattle, it rarely or never springs up wild here.

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