Heavenly Gold

Do you have olfactory memories from childhood that linger with you into your senior years? Smells that instantly transport you to a different time and place?

I have several, including the lilacs hanging over my parents’ fence from our neighbor’s yard and the hillside of scotch broom growing next to my elementary school. Spring fever infected the schoolyard, the pungent odors calling us to get outdoors, now — it’s  May, and summer vacation is nearly here!

My parents had a tree growing in our backyard that created that same intensity of memory. It was a short tree, even to a four-foot kid like me. And in spring, golden-yellow clusters of flowers rained down from its branches like honey from heaven. It stood near a fence along our property line, and luckily stopped more than a few errant baseballs from going into our grouchy neighbor’s yard.

Beyond that, I knew nothing about this tree, which my dad called “the burning,” or at least that’s how my young ears heard it. The name made sense to me, the flowers like the light of fire cascading down from above.

Fast forward a few years… make that a few decades. I saw a cluster of trees at Cap Sante when I lived there, sporting bright yellow flower clusters. And as I am wont to do, I buried my face into the flowers like a busy bee.

There was that smell from my childhood! I remember this fragrance, but from where, and from when?

I took a picture of it, and as we do these days, I put it into a search engine, and ‘voila’, the answer is: Laburnum.

OHHHH, I said out loud, so THAT is what my dad must have been saying. That’s what I heard as “the burning.”

And here it is growing abundantly along the shores of the Rotary Park walkway leading out to the pavilion at the base of Cap Sante. I had the privilege of living mere steps from this pathway, and my springtime walks brought me right back to playing in my backyard as a child.

It still does.

We had just finished walking Murphy there, and once again I had to bury my face in the flowers, just to be young again, if only for a moment.

A more familiar name for this shrubby tree or tree-like shrub is “Golden Chain.” Now that makes sense, and you don’t need a dictionary to figure it out. The flowers flow down in yellow waterfalls of hundreds of ‘pendulant racemes’, as the botanists describe them.

Look closely at the flowers (which are just like pea flowers because Golden Chain is in the pea family), and you will see a big landing platform at the flower’s base and a big backstop above it. There are even red stripes on the platform and backstop to make sure an incoming insect can use its navigational equipment to make a perfect landing, pick up some nectar, and get a dollop of pollen on its behind as a parting gift.

I was leading a hike to the Ginnett overlook last weekend, and a Golden Chain tree bloomed proudly at the concrete pad near the overlook. One of our hikers said it looked like Wisteria. Change the flower color to light purple and the two plants would almost be identical. Wisteria also has a very similar, delightful, unforgettable fragrance, and the shape of the flowers is so much like Golden Chain. And yes, Wisteria is also in the pea family.

Get out there and be like a bee. Inhale that lovely perfume while you can. It may not be there for long, just like our childhoods. Spring’s olfactory delights are fleeting. Treasure each moment while ye may.

For more information:

The scientific name for Golden Chain is Laburnum anagyroides. The word Laburnum is of unknown origin, possibly Etruscan, which means nothing to me. The species name anagyroides is derived from Greek, and means "resembling Anagyris." Yeah, that doesn’t help me either. It refers to the plant's similarity to a plant in the genus Anagyris, another member of the pea family that it somewhat resembles.

The genus includes Laburnum anagyroides (common laburnum) and Laburnum alpinum (alpine laburnum).  The most popular garden variety is the hybrid Laburnum × watereri 'Vossii', which features longer, denser flower clusters and lower seed production.

You will find Golden Chain is best suited to moderate climates like the Pacific Northwest, Northern Europe, and New England. It struggles in hot, dry summers and warm winters.

Check out the flowers of Scotch Broom, too, which are also now blooming in too many places, and you will see the same airport-runway markings. Scotch broom also has a special trigger mechanism to make sure the pollen gets deposited on target. That might be a topic for a future Skagit Wonder.

All parts of the Golden Chain Tree are poisonous, with the seeds and seedpods being the most toxic.  The primary toxin is cytisine, a nicotinic receptor agonist, which is why some people use small quantities of it to stop their smoking habit! Ingestion can cause severe symptoms, including vomiting, intense sleepiness, convulsions, coma, and dilated pupils.  While mortality is rare, keep children and pets away from the tree, especially after flowering, when the seed pods develop. (No one told that to my parents. Somehow I survived.)

In the olden days, it was used for cabinetmaking and inlay, as well as for musical instruments. In addition, it was a popular wood for bagpipes. Laburnum is generally not toxic to touch.

It has trifoliate, clover-like leaves and smooth, green bark. In its natural form, it is a shrubby, multi-branched tree, but it is often pruned to a single trunk for ornamental use.

Typically, it grows 15–30 feet tall and wide, though it wasn’t that tall at my parents’ place. Maybe it is now, how many years later? Do you really want to ask how many years it's been? Let’s just enjoy the fragrance and feel young again.

Our backyard in around 1960 or so. The golden chain tree is barely visible at the far upper right of the photo, the white house of our grumpy neighbor behind it. I'm the little tyke with his elbow on the table, between my two brothers, and a much older cousin on the far left. My sister is closest to the camera on the right side of the table.