Our Poinciana Tree

This is our house, showing the gorgeous Poinciana (or Flamboyant) Tree.This is the season for its flowering and this year it is very striking - probably because of the drought, the tree is putting out more blossoms for survival. A week ago we had a big thunder storm with very high winds and a branch broke off, laden with blossom - so I was able to get a closer look at these beautiful flowers.










Each flower has five petals, and five sepals like a star. Our Poinciana has one petal that is white with red blotches. and a yellow splotch where it joins the stem. It also has long stamens carrying a seed at the end, also red. The leaves are delicate and feathery and close up at night, which these obviously have. Once they were put in water for a day they revived beautifully.

And no, sadly we did not get enough water from the storm to relieve our drought conditions! We seem to get one storm after weeks of no rain and then this repeats for another few weeks. If only we could get two solid weeks of rain - just bucketing down like we used to get at this time of year!!