Poinciana
(named after M. de Poinci, Governor of the Antilles in the middle of the seventeenth century, and a patron of botany). Flower Fence. ORD. Leguminosae. A genus consisting of only three species of stove, evergreen, unarmed trees, natives of the warmer parts of Eastern Africa, the Mascarene Islands, and the Western Provinces of India. Flowers orange or scarlet, showy, corymbosely racemose at the apices of the branches; calyx segments valvate; petals five, orbiculate, imbricated; stamens ten, free. Pods elongated, flat, compressed, hard, two-valved. Leaves bipinnate; leaflets small, numerous; stipules inconspicuous; bracts small, very caducous. For culture, see Caesalpinia.
P. pulcherrima (very pretty). fl. on very long pedicels; petals orange-yellow, rarely red, 1in. long, exceeding the calyx, often lacerated on the margins; racemes terminal, pyramidal. July. Pods flat-compressed, 4in. to 5in. long. l., pinnae three-to nine-jugal; leaflets five-to ten-jugal, 1/2in. long, oblong or spathulate-oblong, rounded or sub-truncate at the mucronulate tip. h. 10ft. to 12ft. West Indies, &c., 1691. Prickly shrub. (B. M. 995.) Caesalpinia pulcherrima is the correct name of this shrub. P. regia (royal). Royal Peacock Flower. fl. bright scarlet, in loose racemes, terminal, and from the axils of the upper leaves; petals almost orbicular, spreading, reflexed, tapering into long claws, veined on the upper side, and dashed with yellowish lines above the base; upper petal variegated and striated with red and yellow; stamens ten; filaments red; pedicels alternately patent. Summer. Pods about 4in. long. l. broadly ovate, 2ft. long, very patent, abruptly bipinnate, with from eleven to eighteen pairs of horizontally patent pinnae, which are 4in. long; pinnules oblong, blunt, on very short petioles; base of common petiole fleshy. Trunk erect, 3ft. in diameter. h. 30ft. to 40ft. Madagascar. A magnificent tree. (B. M. 2884.)