We have been enjoying the hospitality of DMs folks this weekend. They’ve been lovely – lots of fantastic food and not only that, they’ve looked after the dogs while we went to Aylesham yesterday.

While we have been here, I’ve been completely amazed by this tree. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The pink leaves are spectacular. Apparently they turn yellow as the summer progresses. It’s in the front garden of a near neighbour.

I’d half-a-mind to knock on the door of their neighbour and ask if they knew what the tree was but apparently they didn’t plant the tree as the house has changed hands in the last couple of years. Dang.

So, I took a stroll and photographed it.

This has been typed on Monday, when back on my own home pc and I’ve been able to do some ferreting to see what the tree is. I’ve had a few false starts on google but eventually I got a name that looked right through a process of trial and error when looking at searches around "spring pink leaves tree". So my next stage was to google image search the name that came up and found several photos of the same tree (not the same exact tree, just the same species). It turns out to be a toona sinensis “flamingo”.

It just goes to show how useful the internet can be – with only reference books to use, it would have taken me a lot longer than this to find out what it was.

What’s interesting is that apparently it’s got edible leaves that are widely used in cooking in China, where the red young leaves apparently taste of onion (according to Wikipedia anyway). It looks like a very good candidate for an ornamental kitchen garden to me.