New Orleans Native Tree

Calla Victoria
Jan 26, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Feb 16, 2024

By LMG Calla Victoria

Mardi Gras Bead Tree

There are trees in New Orleans that bloom once each year. Sometimes it happens between January and February, or between February and March. This year the big event will take place between January and February. Now these trees are of no particular genus (plant family) oh no they can be oak trees, palm trees, crepe myrtles, pine, or almost any other tree that you can think of. The major proliferations of these mysterious trees are along the parade routes like down St. Charles Avenue, up Canal Street, along Carrollton Avenue, Orleans Avenue, Napoleon Avenue, and Magazine Street. But some are finding their way into other areas of the city. These trees, the common name is the Mardi Gras bead tree and the botanical name is Le Bon ton rule.' They start to show color as the parade season gets underway, and continue to reveal more treasures and the season persists.

Although prevalent along the parade routes in New Orleans, many of these trees are finding their way into other areas of the city. Residents, like me, who don’t live along a parade route, feel that we should not be deprived of these wonderful and rare trees. To that end, residents go to the parades and then adorn the trees in their front yard with their catches creating their own Mardi Gras trees. You can even find them on college campuses where the students bestow the honor of Mardi Gras Bead tree to a designated tree, and as they get back on campus laden down with trinkets from the parades they enjoy tossing them onto the tree. Mardi Gras bead trees are the focus of this article as it is a gardening article. However, there are other phenomena that surface along with the Mardi Gras trees. There are bead fences, bead porches, and bead balconies as well.