March 14, 2004 -- The cousins here were enjoying a warm Sunday afternoon in a normally quiet 'burb tucked in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, just east of Pasadena and Arcadia. Their venue: the annual Wistaria Festival in Sierra Madre, California, a weekend of open-street food, arts and crafts inspired by the quaint old town's claim to international fame, a rather large vine of wistarias grown over two backyards throughout the past century.
		The plaque reads: "This world famous wistaria vine, one of the 7 horticultural wonders of the world, was planted in 1894 from a one-gallon pot. Listed as the "world's largest blossoming plant" by the Guiness Book of World Records, it covers nearly one acre, weighs over 250 tons and has over 1,500,000 blossoms during its five-week blossoming period." For many years, the owners of the two properties that the vine sprawls over have graciously held an open house during the blossoming period. The whole business is run very smoothly by the volunteers of the Sierra Madre Chamber of Commerce, who chartered a continuous run of two air-conditioned coaches to ferry visitors between the town center and the site.

These photos are taken with the Nikon D100 digital SLR with the Nikon 20mm f/2.8 D and the Nikon 60mm f/2.8 D lenses.

 

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