Yellow Poincianas light up Port Moresby

It's that time of the year again and all over Port Moresby, Yellow Poincianas are lighting the city and showering them with petals.It’s a beautiful sight, and at Gerehu where I live, even more so when I take my children to the playground.Yellow Poincianas come into bloom around November and last into the early New Year.

Information below from http://www.floridata.com/ref/P/pelt_pte.cfm.

Description

Yellow poinciana is a very showy flowering tree up to 50' tall, with wide-spreading branches that form an umbrella-like crown up to 25' across. The stems and twigs are rusty-red tomentose (fuzzy). The leaves are bipinnate (twice compound), about 2' long with 8-20 pairs of 3/4"-long oblong leaflets. The fragrant flowers are clustered on upright stalks (racemes, actually) about 18" long. Each flower is about an inch and a half across with translucent yellow, strangely-crinkled petals. The flowers have conspicuous orange stamens and each petal has a reddish brown mark in the center. They are followed by purplish brown, flattened, oblong seed pods, 3-4" long, which remain on the tree until the next flowering season.

Location

Yellow poinciana is native to coastal areas from Sri Lanka through the Malay archipelago and Indonesia to northern Australia. It has escaped from cultivation and established itself in disturbed areas in southern Florida and Hawaii.

Culture

Light: Does well in semi-shade, but can tolerate full sun if well-watered.

Moisture: Needs moist, but well-drained soil.

Hardiness: USDA Zones 10 - 11.

Propagation: Propagation of yellow poinciana is by seeds that must be treated before they will germinate. In nature, the seeds would have passed through the gut of a bird or mammal before germinating in a pile of rich "compost." We simulate that process with scarification (use a file or sandpaper), or a two-minute immersion in dilute acid or boiling water.

 Usage

Yellow poincianas are usually planted as specimen trees or as shade trees. They are used as street trees in tropical cities, and commonly planted for shade in tropical and subtropical gardens. They are fast-growing and vigorous, but they cannot tolerate frost.

Features

The name poinciana also is used for three other showy subtropical trees or shrubs in the bean family: Royal poinciana (Delonix regia), also called flame tree or flamboyant tree; dwarf poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), also called Barbados pride or peacock flower; and another dwarf poinciana (C. gilliesii), also called bird-of-paradise bush.