Welcome to ecOrganic beads
Natural seed collection
The seeds used for making our beads are gathered when they drop from the trees in season. As a result the availability of seed varies throughout the year. Nature ensures that no two beads are the same by adding subtle variations to seeds. This makes using ecorganic beads a wonderful experience as each seed is unique. We encourage you to experiment with the wide variety of beads. Feel the smooth richness of seeds so silky we ‘ve nicknamed them “tree pearls”, the jacaranda that comes in the guise of papery fragility, wonderful contrasts of buttersoft appearance , ridged patterns and rich textures.
Tagua Nuts Collection aka Vegetable Ivory
Vegetable ivory/ corozo/ the tagua is the name given to the nut of palm trees( Phytelephas aequatorialis) that grow in the South American rainforest. When dried out, it can be carved as an ivory replica. Humanitarians and environmentalists can both appreciate it because its use stimulates the economies in South America, provides an alternative to cutting down rainforest for farming, and prevents elephants from being killed for their tusks. It is often dyed with vegetable dye and used for beads, buttons, jewellery, games, home decor, bagpipes and etc.
The Jacaranda
The Jacaranda is of the Bignoniaceae family. It can be found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Central and south America, Africa, Mexico, Australia and the Caribbean. The species vary from shrubs to large trees, ranging in size from 2 to 30 metres tall. Its leaves are bippinate in most species, pinnate or simple in a few species. Jacaranda flowers are produced in conspicuous large panicles, each flower with a five-lobed blue to purple-blue corolla; a few species have white flowers. The fruit is an oblong to oval flattened capsule containing numerous slender seeds.
Flowering jacaranda
The science bit
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Bignoniaceae
Genus: Jacaranda
Myths and Popular beliefs
In many parts of the world, such as Mexico, SouthAfrica and Zimbabwe, the blooming of this tree is welcomed as a sign of spring.
The city of Pretoria in South Africa is popularly known as The Jacaranda City due to the enormous number of Jacaranda trees planted as street trees and in parks and gardens. In flowering time the city appears blue/purple in colour when seen from the nearby hills because of all the Jacaranda trees. The time of year the Jacarandas bloom in Pretoria, coincide with the year-end exams at the local university and legend has it that if a flower from the Jacaranda tree drops on your head, you will pass all your exams.
Further afield in Australia, the city of Brisbane has a local reputation of having a significant population of Jacaranda trees. The University of Queensland in the city's inner west has a very high concentration of the tree, and due to the impressive display of purple flowers in mid-Spring, which wind up littering vast sections of the suburbs, local folklore claims that "one won't start studying for exams until the jacarandas have molted". At Sydney University there exists a similar expression "by the time the jacaranda in the main quadrangle flowers, it's too late to start studying for exams".
At the University of Queensland students even maintain a joke superstition that if a Jacaranda bloom falls on their head during exam time, they will fail an exam. The bad luck can be broken by catching another bloom before it hits the ground. This has led to the slang name "exam tree" being attached to the plant.
Medicinal Uses
Water extract of Jacaranda mimosifolia shows a high antimicrobial action against Bacillus cereus and Escherichia coli . The extract also acts against Staphylococcus aureus.