Jacaranda
Flowering Jacaranda
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Lamiales
Family:	Bignoniaceae
Tribe:	Tecomeae
Genus:	Jacaranda Juss.[1]
Species
See text.

Jacaranda ( /ˌdʒækəˈrændə/)^[2] is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of Central America, Mexico, South America (especially Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay), and the Caribbean. It is also found in Asia, especially in Nepal. It is found throughout the Americas and Caribbean, and has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, India, Fiji and parts of Africa. The genus name is also used as the common name.

Growth[link]

The species are shrubs to large trees ranging in size from 2 to 30 m (6.6 to 98 ft) tall. The leaves are bipinnate in most species, pinnate or simple in a few species. The flowers are produced in conspicuous large panicles, each flower with a five-lobed blue to purple-blue corolla; a few species have white flowers. The fruit is an oblong to oval flattened capsule containing numerous slender seeds. The genus differs from other genera in the Bignoniaceae in having a staminode that is longer than the stamens, tricolpate pollen, and a chromosome number of 18.

Genus[link]

The genus is divided into two sections, sect. Jacaranda (syn. sect. Monolobos, an invalid name as it includes the type species of the genus, J. caerulea) and sect. Dilobos DC., based on the number of thecae on the anthers. Sect. Jacaranda (which includes Blue Jacarandas) has 18 species and is found primarily in western South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Sect. Dilobos, which is believed to be the primitive form, has 31 species and is found primarily in southeastern Brazil including the Paraná River valley. The anatomy of the wood in the two sections also differs. Although usually treated in sect. Jacaranda, J. copaia differs somewhat from all other members of the genus, and may be intermediate between the two sections (Dos Santos & Miller 1997).

Selected species[link]

Flowers of Jacaranda ulei.

Flower of Jacaranda cuspidifolia.

Flowers of Jacaranda macrantha.

Cultivation and uses[link]

Jacaranda seedling

Jacaranda can be propagated from grafting, cuttings and seeds though plants grown from seeds take a long time to bloom. Jacaranda grows in well drained soil and tolerates drought and brief spells of frost and freeze.^[3]

Several species are widely grown as ornamental plants throughout the subtropical regions of the world, valued for their intense flower displays. The most often seen is the Blue Jacaranda Jacaranda mimosifolia (syn. J. acutifolia hort. non Bonpl.). Other members of the genus are also commercially important; for example the Copaia (Jacaranda copaia) is important for its timber because of its exceptionally long bole.

Pretoria in South Africa is popularly known as The Jacaranda City due to the enormous number of Jacaranda trees planted as street trees and in parks and gardens. In flowering time the city appears blue/purple in colour when seen from the nearby hills because of all the Jacaranda trees. The time of year the Jacarandas bloom in Pretoria coincides with the year-end exams at the University of Pretoria and legend has it that if a flower from the Jacaranda tree drops on your head, you will pass all your exams.^{[citation needed]}.

Jacaranda in full bloom in Bangalore, India

Jacarandas in bloom have become closely associated with Ipswich and South East Queensland. The Ipswich City Council have used jacarandas to line avenues, and commercial developments in some areas, particularly along the Bremer River have incorporated jacarandas into their landscape design. The trees are common in parks throughout the city, most notably in a long curved avenue in New Farm Park, in Goodna, and in private gardens. Dairy Farmers milk company, located on "Jacaranda St", East Ipswich, produces a brand of iced coffee justly named "Jacaranda" which is only available for sale in Ipswich.^[4]

Church surrounded by jacarandas in bloom, Wooroolin, Australia.

The city of Grafton on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, is also famous for its Jacarandas. Each year in late October and early November the city has a Jacaranda festival^[5] during the period of full bloom. A street parade, local public holiday and a series of events are held. A local public holiday sees the city's businesses perform street theatre for passers by and street stalls proliferate. A Jacaranda Queen and Jacaranda Princess are named at a formal ball.

The tree canopies in some of Sydney's north shore and harbour suburbs in the east have a purple glow during late spring.

The main street of the town of Red Cliffs, Victoria, Australia (part of the Calder Highway) was named Jacaranda Street in the original town plans of the early 1920s and Jacaranda trees have since been planted to line this street.

Jacarandas are also popular in the southern and central parts of Florida and the southwestern United States, notably in Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California. Jacaranda can be found throughout most of Southern California, where they were imported by the horticulturalist Kate Sessions. In California, jacarandas are known as the trees that bloom twice a year, although the fall bloom is generally not as striking as the spring bloom. Tampa, St. Petersburg, and other southern Florida cities are ribboned by purple flowers during peak bloom of April. Jacaranda trees are principally found in parks and interspersed along the avenues and streets. Jacarandas were introduced to Israel over 50 years ago, where they are in full bloom during May. They are popular and can be found in cities all over Israel.

In many parts of the world, such as Mexico, Los Angeles, Lisbon, and Zimbabwe the blooming of this tree is welcomed as a sign of spring.

Brazilian Jacaranda is also used as the wood for the body of acoustic guitars.

Jacaranda can also be found in the South China Karst (a World Heritage site). The Chinese use the leaves to make a distinctive purple dye.

Gallery[link]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jacaranda

Wikispecies has information related to: Jacaranda

• Germplasm Resources Information Network: Jacaranda
• Dos Santos, G., & Miller, R. B. (1997). Wood anatomy of Jacaranda (Bignoniaceae): Systematic relationships in sections Monolobos and Dilobos as suggested by twig and stem rays. IAWA Journal 18: 369-383. Available online (pdf file).
• Goodna RSL Jacaranda Festival at Evan Marginson Park, Goodna
• Agroforestry Tree Database
• Jacaranda Festival, Grafton
• Song of the Jacaranda by Maria Elena Walsh and Palito Ortega, popular Argentinean children song

Josh Garrels is a folk musician from Portland, Oregon.

Overview[link]

Josh Garrels self-recorded his first three albums before starting Small Voice Records where he released his fourth and fifth studio albums: Jacaranda and Lost Animals^{[citation needed]}. Garrels released his sixth album in June 2011 titled Love & War & The Sea In Between. This album was released as a free download online.^[1] Christianity Today calls this most recent album "prophetic, incisive, achingly human, and longingly spiritual," and rated it as their 2011 Album of The Year.^[2][3]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Stone Tree (2002)
• Underquiet (2003)
• Over Oceans (2006)
• Jacaranda (2008)
• Lost Animals (2009)
• Love & War & The Sea In Between (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

María Elena Walsh
Famous portrait of Maria Elena Walsh by her partner and photographer Sara Facio, which she later intervened with paint.
Born	(1930-02-01)1 February 1930 Ramos Mejía, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	10 January 2011(2011-01-10) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Occupation	Novelist Author, Singer-songwriter, Poet
Nationality	Argentine
Genres	Children's literature, Autobiographical novel, poetry
Partner(s)	Sara Facio
www.me.gov.ar

María Elena Walsh and Leda Valladares, 1960

María Elena Walsh (1 February 1930 – 10 January 2011) was an Argentine poet, novelist, musician, dramaturge, writer and composer, mainly known for her songs and books for children.

Biography[link]

María Elena Walsh, 1971

María Elena Walsh was born in Villa Sarmiento, Ramos Mejía, Buenos Aires, to an English railway worker, of Irish descent, who played the piano and an Argentine woman of Andalusian descent. As a child, she lived in a big house, where she greatly enjoyed reading and listening to music in a cultural environment.

When she was 15, Walsh had some of her poems published in El Hogar magazine and La Nación newspaper. In 1947, before graduating from art school, she published her first book, Otoño Imperdonable, a collection of poems which was critically acclaimed and received recognition from important Latin American writers.

After graduation in 1948, she traveled to North America invited by poet Juan Ramon Jiménez and Europe during the Peronism and then moved to Paris where she spent four years in the early 1950s. While there, Walsh performed in concerts featuring Argentine folklore with fellow Argentinean singer Leda Valladares (born 1919), forming the duo Leda & Maria and recording for Le chant du monde.^[1]

She returned to Argentina in 1956 after the Revolución Libertadora. In 1958, Walsh wrote numerous TV scripts, plays, poems, books and songs, specially for kids, her stories and songs are highly poetic and entertaining. Her most famous song was “Manuelita la Tortuga” (Manuelita the Turtle) and the Twist of the Monkey Mono Liso. She triumph as a performer too, singing her songs onstage in 1962 (Canciones para mirar) and 1968, Juguemos en el mundo, a show dedicated to grown-ups very critical of the government censorship,^[2] recordings and made a film Let's play in the world ^[3] based on her characters Doña Disparate y Bambuco directed by her partner at that time, Maria Herminia Avellaneda (1933–1997).

Her work has often contained an underlying political message, as in the song El País del Nomeacuerdo ("The Country of IDontRemember"), which was later used as the theme song for The Official Story, winner of the 1985 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

During the military dictatorship (1976–83) she was a fierce opponent, her song "Oración a la justicia" (Prayer for Justice) became a civil right anthem. In an open letter she criticized the regime censorship comparing the country with a preschool country calling it "Desventuras en el Pais-Jardin-de-Infantes" (Misadventures in the Preschool Country).

In 1985 she received the title of Illustrious Citizen of the City of Buenos Aires, and in 1990 was named Doctor honoris causa of the National University of Cordoba and Illustrious People of Buenos Aires Province as well.

In 1991 she was given the Highly Commended ranking in winning the Hans Christian Andersen Award, a prize awarded by the International Board on Books for Young People.

She was 80 when she died in Buenos Aires on 10 January 2011, after suffering from bone cancer. She lived with her partner, the photographer Sara Facio (born 1932) from 1980 until her death.^[4][5]

Misfortunes in Kindergarten-Country")

• Novios de antaño - 1990 ("Lovers of Yore")
• Hotel Pioho's Palace - 2002 ("Louse's Palace Hotel")

Albums[link]

• Canciones para mirar ("Songs to Look At")
• Canciones para mí ("Songs for Me")
• El País del Nomeacuerdo ("The Country of IDontRemember")
• El País de la Navidad ("The Country of Christmas")
• Cuentopos ("Storiettes")

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.ediciona.com/entrevista_a_maria_elena_walsh_pimera_pagina-dirpi-68936.htm
• María Elena Walsh by Sara Facio
• Biography at the Ministry of Education of Argentina (Spanish)
• Obituary
• ABC News Obituary
• Obituary
• Biography at essayist.org (Spanish)
• Videos editados en 3D y otros desde Youtube (Spanish)
• Maria Elena Walsh at the Internet Movie Database

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2010)

Ramón "Palito" Ortega
Argentine Senate
In office December 10, 1995 – December 10, 1999
Governor of Tucumán
In office October 28, 1991 – October 28, 1995
Lieutenant	Julio Díaz Lozano
Preceded by	Julio César Aráoz
Succeeded by	Antonio Domingo Bussi
Personal details
Born	(1942-03-08) March 8, 1942 (age 70) Lules, Tucumán
Political party	Justicialist Party
Spouse(s)	Evangelina Salazar
Profession	Musician

Ramón Bautista Ortega (born March 8, 1942) Argentine singer and actor, better known as Palito Ortega.^[1] Ortega reached international fame, particularly in Latin America and Spain, during the 1960s, when Rock and Roll music was popularized among teenagers in the region.

Life and times[link]

Youth[link]

Ortega was born to a very poor family in Lules, and had to work from a young age, selling newspapers in San Miguel de Tucumán, and finding a job at a store. His real passion, however, was music, as he had been dreaming of becoming a singer since early childhood; as a teenager, Ortega was an admirer of Elvis Presley.

In 1956, Ortega moved to Buenos Aires, where he wound up selling coffee on the city's parks, corners and streets. He used his work as a coffee seller to get into show business: eventually, he set up a coffee selling spot near Buenos Aires' television channel seven. This worked well for Ortega, as many entertainers would stop by to buy coffee from his stand, and he became acquainted with some of the best known Argentine rock musicians of the era. Ortega also worked near Radio Belgrano, where many of the singers he met while selling coffee near the television station would recognize him and form a bond with the young star in the making.

Ortega became friends with members of a famous group named "Carlinhos y su Banda". He learned to play drums during band practices, and, eventually, he joined the group. A period of wild success across South America followed for the band, with Ortega being one of their most popular members. Ortega left the group to follow a solo career, confident that the recognition the group had given him would guarantee him success as a solo artist.

Career in entertainment[link]

His first solo album, "La Edad del Amor" ("The Age of Love"), was recorded under the artistic name of Nery Nelson. This album, as well as the next one ("Yo no Quiero," translated to "I Don't Want To"), were not hits. Both albums were recorded in Mendoza with low budgets and no recording company to back them up. Ortega also used the artistic nickname of Tony Varano for some of his live shows at the time, and he became a member of "The Lyons" when the Argentine rock legend, lead singer Peter Rock, left the band. His interests, however, remained in being a successful solo singer, and he left The Lyons within months of joining that band.

Ortega met songwriter Dino Ramos in 1962; this would prove important in Ortega's career as Ramos would write a large number of Ortega's hits. By 1963, in the midst of Argentina's own "new wave" (La nueva ola) movement (such movements were taking place in many countries, such as England, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States, among other countries), Ortega began to become a television regular, as he was featured multiple times on a popular Canal 11 show of the time, "Club del Clan" ("The Clan Club"); it should be pointed out that the word clan in Spanish has nothing to do with racist groups; "clan" has the same meaning as "group" in Spanish.

In 1963, he signed with RCA Records, and began recording immediately. His television appearances led to a career in cinema. Ortega recorded 27 albums, and starred in 26 films at the time, becoming a teen idol as a consequence. He acted and sang in those films, and shared the big screen with many of Argentina's most important actors and actresses of the time. His fame acquainted him with Evangelina Salazar, a television actress known for her role as a country schoolteacher; the couple were married in 1967, and had six children.^[2]

Palito Ortega would travel extensively through the rest of the 1960s and the 1970s. He went on to record for RCA in Mexico, Italy, England, and Nashville, Tennessee. Ortega's status as a teen idol declined during that period, and he reduced his television and movie appearances, as well as his album recordings. He did, however, become a successful music promoter, and in August 1981, produced a show for Frank Sinatra in Argentina. The sharp devaluation of the peso following the collapse of Economy Minister José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz's exchange rate timetable made his US dollar-denominated contactual obligations unaffordable, however. Ortega reportedly lost one million dollars after paying the legendary crooner for his Luna Park Stadium show, and was forced to sell a significant portion of his estate.^[2]

Ortega relocated with his wife and six children to Miami in 1985, which by then was becoming a mecca for Latino entertainers. Ortega joined the likes of Iris Chacón, Charytín, Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias and others as a resident of the south Florida city. Ortega sang the United States national anthem before the 1986 world middleweight championship boxing fight between Marvin Hagler and John Mugabi.

Politics and retirement[link]

Ortega retired from show business for a while after that, focusing on his career as a businessman and eyeing a career as a politician instead. Two of his children (son Emanuel and daughter Julieta) followed in their father's footsteps as entertainers, and, with Emanuel moving to Mexico, Ortega decided to return to Argentina. He was elected Governor of Tucumán Province in 1991, narrowly defeating former military Governor Antonio Domingo Bussi. One of his brothers, Juan, supported Bussi, though another brother, Luis, was elected Mayor of General Sarmiento (a suburb of Buenos Aires).^[2]

Ortega governed as a close ally of President Carlos Menem. Aligned with Menem's free market policies, he privatized the Bank of Tucumán and the Provincial Water Authority, moves which cost him approval. The Vice-Governor, Julio Díaz, broke with Ortega, and in 1993 accused the governor of ordering politically motivated investigations of students and labor union officials;^[3] Ortega declined to run for re-election in 1995, and was instead elected to the Argentine Senate. The Justicialist Party nominated him for the Vice-Presidency in 1999, but his party lost the general elections that year.

Ortega left politics, and in 2002, began to tour as a singer again.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Palito Ortega

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Luciano Pereyra
Background information
Born	(1981-08-21) August 21, 1981 (age 30)
Origin	Luján, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Genres	Folk, Latin pop
Occupations	singer, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, piano, singing
Years active	1998–present
Labels	EMI Music, Argentina
Website	http://www.lucianopereyra.com/

Luciano Pereyra (born September 21, 1981 in Luján, Buenos Aires Province), is an Argentine singer.

Biography[link]

His full name is Luciano Ariel Pereyra. When he was three years old, his parents noticed his talent for music and gave him a guitar for Christmas. The following year, he competed in a television program from the old ATC now Canal Siete. At age 9, he participated in Festilindo, a competition program oriented for children. When he was 10, he sang in the program Xuxa of León Gieco "Sólo le pido a Dios", which ten years later (2000) made him famous for singing to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, representing Latin America in the Jubilee Youth.

Music[link]

Luciano recorded his first album in 1998 called Amaneciendo (Dawn), an album containing 13 songs with zamba rhythms, carnavalitos, waltzes, ballads and chacareras. His first hit was called "Soy un inconciente" (I'm an unconscious); this single eventually went quadruple platinum. In 1999 he performed a recital in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Opera.

March 2000 saw the release of the second album: Recordándote (Reminding), including the song "Sólo le pido a Dios" (Just pray to God) and songs written by himself. The record was at the top of national ranking for three consecutive weeks.

In 2001 he was chosen to sing the Argentine National Anthem during the farewell match tribute to Diego Maradona.

He has sung duets with artists such as Rodrigo Bueno, Soledad Pastorutti and Alejandro Lerner. In June 2002 Pereyra released his third CD entitled Soy Tuyo (I'm yours) a disk that contains more of a bolero and tango influence. He toured South America and performed concerts for 6 nights at the Teatro Gran Rex.

In 2003 Pereyra participated in the film Tus ojos brillaban (Your eyes sparkled), a year later he worked in the comedy pensioners. On June 22 that year he released Luciano, with songs written by himself such as "Perdóname" (I'm Sorry).

In November, 2006, he released the disc Dispuesto a amarte (Willing to Love), the fifth album of his career, with the theme "Porque aún te amo" (Because I Love You) as a first cut of circulation.

In November 2008, Pereyra released No puedo (I Can't), lyrics and music also composed music by Luciano Pereyra, with a corresponding video, with the special participation of the model Florencia Torrente. Dispuesto a amarte (Willing to love you) is a disc that contains a more romantic theme, and was influenced by Rudy Pérez, a producer and composer who had worked with artists Cristian Castro, Chayanne, Luis Fonsi, and Luis Miguel.

Awards[link]

• Consecration in the National Festival of Dressage and Folklore Jesus Maria (1999).
• Revelation Festival Baradero (1999).
• Consecration Cosquín Festival (2000).