Delonix regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Caesalpiniaceae

• Scientific Name

  Delonix regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf.

• Description

  
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  Species Description - The Royal Poinciana is one of the most elegant of all trees, when in bloom, then profusely covered with large, orange to scarlet flowers, wonderful and conspicuous, flowering freely in the summer, but there are a few precocious trees which bloom as early as April. The tree is native of Madagascar; Flame-tree is another appropriate name. Doctor Hooker,when publishing the first description, communicated by professor Bojer, who discovered it at Foule Point, in Madagascar, where it was called Tanahau, denominated it Superb Poinciana. It is planted for ornament and shade in nearly all tropical and subtropical regions, and is spontaneous from seed, and locally naturalized in Porto Rico. Delonix (Greek, referring to the long-clawed petals) is a genus established by the naturalist Rafinesque in 1836, pointing out that it is different, in many features, from Poinciana. The 3 known species are African; they are unarmed trees, with twice compound leaves, composed of many, small leaflets, and very showy, clustered, terminal and axillary flowers. The calyx is deeply, and nearly equally 5-lobed, the lobes not overlapping; the 5 petals have long claws, and nearly round blades; there are 10, separate, declined stamens; the stalkless ovary contains many ovules; the stigma is flat-topped, and short-fringed. The pod is large, long, flat, woody, 2-valved, nearly solid between the oblong, transverse seeds. Delonix regia branches widely, becoming about 12 meters high, or higher, with a trunk up to nearly a meter in diameter, and flanged at the base; the thin bark is grayish brown, the twigs somewhat hairy. The leaves are 0.5 meter long, or shorter, with a stout, reddish, or yellow stalk from 7 to 12 centimeters long; they have from 10 to 25 pairs of first divisions, short-stalked, and from 8 to 15 centimeters long, the axis hairy, each with from 20 to 40 pairs of oblong, blunt, unequal-sided leaflets from 4 to 10 millimeters long. The individual flowers are borne on stalks from 4 to 8 centimeters long; the calyx is about 2 centimeters long, the petals from 5 to 7 centimeters long, the stamens somewhat shorter. The dark brown, hard pod is from 0.4 to 0.6 meter long, from 5 to 7 centimeters wide.

• Discussion

  Flamboyan Royal Poinciana Senna Family Poinciana regia Bojer; Hooker, Botanical Magazine, plate 2884. 1829. Delonix regia Rafinesque, Flora Telluriana 2; 92. 1836.