I can't believe it's the end of November already! This November (2014) has been exceptionally dry and we have had hardly any rain at all. The storms that usually bring heavy rain and hail at this time of year just haven't occurred (yet!). This means that there is a bumper crop of orange-red royal poinciana (delonix regia) flowers at the moment, as none of the young flower buds were knocked their branches off by rain or hail.
The flowers look absolutely stunning. I just love the vibrant red-orange colour, particularly against a sky that is deep blue and cloudless, dark grey and stormy, or twilight purple.
Our neighbours have a gorgeous giant poinciana tree that we can see from our back deck. The photo above shows that tree with an evening storm rolling in from the south-west and the sun still (but only just!) peeking through the clouds and catching the flowers on the tree. No filters, I promise!
Some people call the poinciana a 'flame tree', but to me a 'flame tree' is the Illawarra flame tree (brachychiton acerifolius) and has a more upright structure than the wide-spreading boughs of the poinciana.
In Australia, there is a very well-known song called 'Flame Trees' (by the Australian rock band Cold Chisel) that was actually originally written about Jacaranda trees. However, local legend has it that the 5-syllable sound 'ja-ca-ran-da-trees' didn't fit with the melody, so the musicians changed it to the 2-syllable 'flame-trees'.
Pronunciation: poinciana = /pɔɪnsiː'jɑːnə/ = poyn-see-YAH-na
(phonemic script written using the IPA Typewriter)
The trees that feature in this video are Illawarra flame trees.
