548 



Barbados Flower 



The wood is soft, weak, close-grained, whitish or yellowish; its specific gravity 

 is about 0.83. The dehcate foliage and profusion of gorgeous flowers make this a 

 ver}' elegant shade tree for the tropics. Its long period of leaflessness, weak, 

 easily broken branches, and the continuous dropping of its great pods, are, 

 however, undesirable features. The genus includes 3 species or more, natives of 

 Africa; D. regia is the type. The name is Greek, in reference to the very evident 

 claws of the petals. 



VIII. BARBADOS FLOWER 



GENUS POmCIANA [TOURNEFORT] LINN^US 

 Species Poinciana pulcherrima Linnaeus 

 Cccsalpinia pulcherrima Swartz 



ARBADOS FLOWER is a beautiful small tree, or more often a shrub, 

 supposed to be a native of Barbados, but it now occurs so frequently 

 throughout the tropics, both wild and in cultivation, that there is some 

 doubt as to its original home. It is also known as Barbados pride, 

 Flower fence, and Bird of paradise flower, and has become naturahzed in penin- 

 sular Florida. Its maximum height is 4 meters, with a trunk diameter of 10 cm. 

 The bark is thin, smooth or nearly so, and brown. The twigs are stout, 



smooth, sometimes armed with stout recurved prickles. 

 The leaves are evenly bipinnate, 20 to 30 cm. long, in- 

 cluding the long slender leaf-stalk. There are 4 to 12 

 pairs of pinnae 4 to 10 cm. long, with 6 to 18 pairs of 

 leaflets; these are thick and leathery, oblong to obovate, 

 15 to 25 mm. long, blunt, notched or short-pointed at 

 the apex, rounded or wedge-shaped at the base, bright 

 green above, paler, smooth, and prominently veined 

 beneath. The flowers, which appear throughout the 

 year, are ver\^ showy, bright red, sometimes yellow, in 

 terminal racemes or panicles, on slender pedicels 4 to 

 9 cm. long; the calyx is 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated, 

 the lower one the largest and overlaps the others; the 

 5 petals are unequal, 2 to 3 cm. long, crisp or wavy- 

 margined; stamens 10, straight or nearly so; filaments distinct, very long-exserted; 

 anthers opening lengthwise. The fruit is broadly linear, somewhat broadest toward 

 the apex, which is unequally taper- pointed, narrowed or rounded at the short- 

 stalked base, dark brown and roughish, separating into two twisting valves; the 

 few seeds are obovate, somewhat angular, 8 to 10 mm. long, and yellowish brown. 

 The generic name is in honor of M. de Poinci, Governor of the Antilles about 

 1650, and a patron of botany. There is but one other species in the genus as here 

 understood, our plant being the type. 



Fig. 507. Barbados Flower. 



