Delonix regia, commonly called flamboyant or royal poinciana, is a tropical tree that is native to Madagascar but has been widely planted around the world in tropical and semi-tropical areas. It typically grows to 30-40' tall with a broad-spreading, flat-topped, umbrella-like crown. Crowns of mature trees often spread to 60-70' wide. This tree is noted for featuring a superb ornamental display of showy scarlet flowers and compound mimosa-like leaves. In the U. S., it can be grown outdoors in the far southern areas of Florida, Texas, Arizona and California plus Hawaii. This tree is deciduous in climates that have a dry season or mildly cool winter, but otherwise is evergreen. Lacy, feathery, mimosa-like, bipinnately compound leaves to 8-15" long, each having 10-20 pairs of pinnae with further division into 25-35 pairs of smaller pinnules. Flowers (3-4") are a brilliant scarlet orange. Each flower has four spreading petals and a larger fifth petal (the banner) which has streaks of yellow and white. In the continental U. S., flowering typically occurs from late spring into summer. Flowers give way to flattened bean-like fruit pods (each to 24" long). Where winter hardy, flamboyant is an outstanding flowering tree for gardens, parks, along streets, and for large front yards. Mature trees provide excellent shade.
Growing Instructions
1. Scarify the seeds by nicking or sanding the seed coat.
2. Soak the seeds in water for several hours.
3. Put a mixture of potting soil and sand or perlite into a pot with drainage holes in the base. The soil should be moist and well-drained.
4. Sow the seeds on the soil.
5. Cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil.
6. Water the seeds. Keep the soil moist but not wet.
7. When the plants are a few inches tall, they can be transplanted.