Common Name : African Tulip Tree

It is a large upright tree with glossy deep green pinnate leaves and glorious orange scarlet flowers. It may grow to 80ft on an ideal site, but most specimens are much smaller. The tree has a stout, tapering, somewhat buttressed trunk covered in warty light grey bark. The lateral branches are short and thick. The 1-2ft long opposite leaves, which emerge a bronzy colour, are massed at the ends of the branches. They are composed of 5-19 deeply veined oval leaflets. The horn shaped velvety olive buds appear in upturned whorls at the branch tips. A few at a time, the buds of the lowest tier bend outward and open into big crinkled red orange tuliplike bells with red streaked gold throats, frilly yellow edges, and four brown-anthered stamens in the centre. They are followed by 5-10in green brown finger like pods pointing upwards and outwards above the foliage. Each of these pods contains about 500 tissue papery seeds. The tree flowers in spurts all through the growing season, but peak bloom is usually in the spring.