Origin of tree that gave Nairobi County exotic beauty

Marabou storks perched on a tree along Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

They called the swamp 'ewaso nyirobi' meaning place of cool waters and was once described in unflattering terms by Ronald Owen Preston, a railway engineer as "a bleak, swampy stretch of soggy landscape, windswept, devoid of human habitation of any sort, the resort of thousands of wild animals of every species."

Ronald Hardy in the book Iron Snake described early Nairobi as a "place in which people and rats live together in common squalor" more so as there were no trees to absorb the water within the swamp.

To give the town some sense of order, Frank Walter Jameson was appointed as the first town planning consultant in 1926. While Jameson's brief was to bring some sanity to the fast deteriorating housing situation, he immediately set out to clothe the city.

It was Jameson who introduced the beautiful Jacaranda trees in Nairobi after a similar feat in Pretoria, South Africa. By 1911, Jameson had planted 40 miles of Jacaranda trees in Pretoria as the roots were said to be "friendly" to the city's sewer system. So famous were his exploits in South Africa and Kenya that in both countries, his moniker, 'Jacaranda Jim' almost became his official name.

Today, the Jacaranda trees dot many urban centres in Kenya that had a strong colonial past. In the coming weeks, the city will be dotted with purple Jacaranda flowers, thanks to Jacaranda Jim. City residents hope that Sakaja will keep his word and embark on a tree-planting mission in the city, now choking under garbage. And that Nairobi will reclaim its former glory as a 'green city in the sun'.