Colors of the Tropics

By Kim Gabel

UF/IFAS/Monroe County Extension

What images come to mind when you hear these words: flamboyant, tree of life, golden-shower?  These are common names for three spectacular flowering trees in the Keys.

Flamboyant or Royal Poinciana is multi-branched, broad, spreading, flatcrowned deciduous tree with a brilliant display of red-orange blooms, that turn the tree tops red from May to July. The fine, soft, delicate leaflets afford dappled shade during the remainder of the growing season, making Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) a favorite shade tree or freestanding specimen in large, open lawns. The tree is often broader than tall, growing about 40 feet high and 60 feet wide. Trunks can become as large as 50 inches or more in diameter. Eighteen-inch-long, dark brown seed pods hang on the tree throughout the dry season then fall on the ground creating a nuisance.

Royal Poinciana

Lignum vitae or Tree of Life is an extremely slow-growing Keys native evergreen tree. On Lignum vitae Key is a Guaiacum sanctum (Lignum Vitae) that is 1600 years old.  The wood is so dense it sinks.  Most trees are seen 8 to 12 feet tall with a beautiful array of multiple trunks and a rounded canopy. The  pinnately compound, dark green leaves are joined at several times throughout the year by the production of large clusters of deep blue flowers, the old flowers fading to a light silvery-blue and small, pumpkin-shaped, yellow berries.

Lignum vitae

Golden-Shower (Cassia fistula) is a fast-growing tree that reaches 30 to 40 feet in height and width. The well-spaced branches have pinnately compound leaves, with leaflets up to eight inches long and 2.5 inches wide. These leaves will drop from the tree for a short period of time and are quickly replaced by new leaves. In summer, Golden-Shower is decorated with thick clusters of showy yellow blooms that cover the slightly drooping branches. The blooms are followed by the production of two-foot-long, dark brown, cylindrical seedpods that persist on the tree throughout the dry season before falling to the ground. The seeds are poisonous.

Golden shower

Toady's information came from a series of 680 tree fact sheets developed by Dr. Ed Gilman. Learn more about landscape plants at the University of Florida Environmental Horticulture Web site: http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu. 

Additional information on marine, horticulture, nutrition, and youth development programs are available from our University of Florida/IFAS/Monroe County Extension Office at 1100 Simonton Street, Suite 2-260, Key West, FL, 33040; phone 305-292-4501; fax 305-292-4415; or e-mail monroe@ifas.ufl.edu. Our services are free and available to all without regard to race, color, sex, or national origin.