TRIPLARIS 
PERIPEARIS 2) bheses tine: vevergreen 
South American trees are well suited for 
avenues. The sexes are on different trees, 
so the planting of two or more is sug- 
gested. The female trees are exceptionally 
beautiful in flower, the males less so. The 
mature trees at the Fairchild Tropical Gar- 
den are T. americana with flowers that 
Tom Barbour called “red as arterial blood.” 
Standley calls them “purplish red and 
very showy’ and adds: “when in full 
flower, or rather fruit, in the spring, 
Triplaris trees are exceedingly showy and 
handsome.” Even more spectacular is T. 
surinamensis. One of my correspondents 
in Jamaica says: “T. cumingiana flowers 
are crimson to vermillion-red from the 
start and the trees are covered with them. 
The flowers of T. surinamensis are waxy- 
to-creamy white at first (10 to 14 days) 
and then turn to brick or rust red (6 to 
S weeks) when ripening the seeds; so 
T. surinamensis is really much more con- 
spicuous. The trees are a sight to look at. 
Both kinds are indeed very showy, tall, 
fast growing, just now in flower (Nov- 
ember). They are just one mass of wine- 
colored flowers which subsequently turn 
salmon to brick red when they are still 
more beautiful. Hardly any leaves show 
in the mass of flowers.” Gates wrote of 
T. surinamensis in the Amazon valley: 
The branches rise high but do not spread, 
and the whole upper part of the tree be- 
comes a mass of color, continuously from 
July to September (in Brazil). The great 
masses of flowers remind one of apple 
trees in flowering time.” (The guy was 
homesick) . 
43 
*RUPRECHTIA (R. coriaceae). This 
introduction of ten years ago turned out 
exceptionally fine. It is a small slow-grow- 
ing South American evergreen tree with 
gray-green foliage and in spring its top 
is covered with clusters of wine-red flow- 
ers. As many plants in the buckwheat 
family have sexes on different trees, the 
planting of two is recommended. 
Pertchik 
“Flowering Trees of the Caribbean’’ 
ROSE OF VENEZUELA 
"ROSE OF VENEZUELA (Brownea 
grandiceps). This medium-size handsome 
Venezuelan tree, sometimes to 40 feet, 
has attractively mottled evergreen foli- 
age and bright red or pink flowers in 
magnificent 8-inch dense clusters at the 
ends of the branches. “It is one of the 
most beautiful trees of the (Trinidad) 
Botanic Gardens,” wrote Freeman & Wil- 
liams. Lancaster says seedlings take 10-15 
years to flower * ‘but a layer will take half 
this time.” The blossom heads often come 
right on the woody branches. New leaves 
are purplish pink, limp, pendant trusses. 
Brownea flowers from February to June. 
*MOUNTAIN ROSE (B. coccinea). 
This small to medium-sized tree, with 
drooping boughs and rounded crown, one 
of the showiest of all flowering trees, is 
distinguished from other Brownea by pro- 
ducing its scarlet flowers in quantities of 
small loose clusters along the trunk and 
older branches, or in clusters 10 flowers 
or more at the tip of each branch. Hum- 
boldt in Venezuela two centuries ugo re- 
ported seeing trees of this “upwards of 
a hundred feet high.” 
