Official Tree

This is a coral tree (or Erythrina), the official tree of the City of Los Angeles. Once you know that, you will notice that they often are planted at city and county buildings. The finest collection is on San Vicente Boulevard; it is a landmark. I painted this in a botanical illustration workshop at the Huntington Library with Lisa Pompelli, the resident artist. It would be a decent guide if you needed to build one of these trees from scratch. Botanical art is insanely detailed to do, but it can be be relaxing and peaceful. It's a bit like yoga in a number of ways, one of which is that I don't have the attention span necessary to do it by myself.