Common name: Scarlet flame bean
Other common names: Western Indian mountain rose
Description
A leguminous or nitrogen-fixing tree originating from Venezuela, South America. The tree is medium-sized usually growing to a height between 10 to 15 meters, but some specimens have been recorded growing to 18 meters. Trees are low branching, round to spreading and slightly weeping in form. The trunk is round, slender and the bark smooth and light grey to brown.
Leaves are compound or fern-like, composed of 12 pairs of medium-green leaflets arranged in an opposite pattern along the length. Young leaflets are showy, limp and droop from the branches. When the emerge, they are pink, purple to red-bronze in colour gradually turning to green as they mature.
Flowers are showy, deep pink or red in colour and tightly packed in dense, round flower-heads. Flowers at the edge of the flower-head open first, with the rest opening gradually toward the centre. Flowers-heads grow from branches and from the trunk of the tree. Flowering can be intermittent through the year, but the main season is late winter through spring. [Edit]