134 



L eguminosa Erythrina. 



27. ERYTHRINA. 



Trees or shrubs, branches often thick and beset with prickles. 

 Leaves pinnately trifoliolate. Flowers showy, usually bright 

 scarlet, in terminal racemes. Standard petal larger and longer 

 than the wings and keel. Calyx spathaceous, truncate, rarely 

 almost equally 5-toothed. Pbd stalked. About twenty-five 

 species are distributed over the warmer regions. The name is 

 from epvOpos, red, the prevalent colour of the flowers. None of 

 the Coral trees are hardy, but some of them will succeed in 

 sheltered places if treated as herbaceous, and cut down each 

 season. 



1. E. Crista-gdlli (fig. 75). In its native country this is 

 arborescent, but it will throw up annual flowering stems about 



Fig. 75. Erythrina Crista-galli. (J nat. size.) 



6 or 8 feet high. The flowers are deep scarlet, and the leaves 

 have a glaucous tinge. A native of Brazil. 



