Silk Flowers

Albizia julibrissin is a species of legume in the genus Albizia, native to southern and eastern Asia, from Iran east to China and Korea. more...

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The genus is named after the Italian nobleman Filippo del Albizzi, who introduced it to Europe in the mid 18th century, and it is sometimes incorrectly spelled "Albizzia". The specific name julibrissin is a corruption of the Persian word Gul-i Abrisham (گل ابریشم) which means the silk flower ("Gul" گل means "flower" and "Abrisham" ابریشم means "silk").

Common names

Albizia julibrissin is known by a wide variety of common names, such as Persian Silk Tree, Pink Siris, Bastard Tamarind, Nemu tree, Lenkoran Acacia or Mimosa. Its leaves slowly close during the night and during periods of rain, the leaflets bowing downward as if the tree were sleeping: its modern Persian name, Shabkhosb (شب‌خسب), means "the night sleeper" ("shab" شب‌ means "night"; Khosb خسب means "sleeper", when used as a suffix). In Japan its common names are Nemunoki, Nenenoki and Nemurinoki which all mean "sleeping tree"; the name represents the summer in haiku. The tree is usually called Mimosa in the United States, which is misleading because, although once included in Mimosa and related to it, it is no longer classified in that genus. (To add to the confusion, several species of Acacia, notably Acacia baileyana and Acacia dealbata, are also known as "mimosa", especially in floristry).

Description

Albizia julibrissin is a small deciduous tree growing to 5 – 12 m tall, with a broad crown of level or arching branches. The bark is dark greenish grey in colour and striped vertically as it gets older. The leaves are tripinnate, 20 – 45 cm long and 12 – 25 cm broad, divided into 6 – 12 pairs of pinnae, each with 20 – 30 pairs of leaflets; the leaflets are oblong, 1 – 1.5 cm long and 2 – 4 mm broad. The flowers are produced throughout the summer in dense inflorescences, the individual flowers with no petals but a tight cluster of stamens 2 – 3 cm long, white or pink with a white base, looking like silky threads. They have been observed to be attractive to bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The fruit is a flat brown pod 10 – 20 cm long and 2 – 2.5 cm broad, containing several seeds inside.

There are two varieties:

Albizia julibrissin var. julibrissin. The typical variety, described above.; Albizia julibrissin var. mollis. Differs in the shoots being densely hairy.;

Read more at Wikipedia.org