Thursday

Spathodea Campanulata

Thanking my lucky stars, I've successfully traded my stash of Thai Adenium seeds for someone elses stash of African Fountain Tree seeds. 50 seeds to be exact, Yippie!!.

I would love to see this specimen bloom in real life (currently oogeling seed suppliers). What will I not try to grow?

Originally from Equatorial Africa, the evergreen African tulip tree can be found abundantly in Suriname; a spectacular flowering tree.
It is a fast-growing, about 80' tall, ever-blooming tree. The wood is known to be very soft and brittle. When young, the leaves are bronze; deep glossy-green at maturity.
Flame of the forest is an ornamental tree in the tropics. The unopened buds contain water, which squirt when squeezed or pierced, for instance by birds.
Out of each bud come, large orange-red flowers and because of those the tree is planted as an ornamental.

The many seeds (about 500) are in an 8" long legume that breaks open when it falls from the tree.
The seeds are very small with transparent winglets.
There is a rare yellow variety of the African tulip tree called Lutea.
The bark and leaves are used in traditional medicine in Ghana.
Bark is used in wound healing and especially burn healing. The bark and leaves shows a wide spectrum of antibacterial activity including anti-malarial activity.
Aqueous alcoholic decoctions of the leaves shows promise to be used for the treatment of malaria.

"Invasive" in Hawaii and extremely rare in N America. Gardening's got to be the greatest hobby of all.

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1 comment:

msedano said...

so, did you Spathodea campanulata seeds sprout? if you like distinctive plants, i have seeds of fuller's teasel i'd love to exchange for a few Spathodea campanulata.

http://www.readraza.com/teasel/index.htm

regards,
mvs