Trees that set the tropics on fire
The great flowering trees that colour whole cities — scarlet, gold and blue on bare branches, and scents worth a perfume.
- 01
Trees№ 2364 minJacaranda and Flame Tree: The Cities That Turn Purple and Scarlet
Two spectacular flowering trees that colour whole cities — the blue-purple jacaranda and the flaming red royal poinciana — celebrated, planted everywhere, and quietly invasive.
- 02
Trees№ 1734 minFrangipani: The Temple Flower That Fools the Moths
The intensely fragrant tree of temples and leis — that offers its night-scent as a trick, giving hawk moths a promise of nectar it never delivers, and roots from a bare stick pushed in the ground.
- 03
Trees№ 0343 minBauhinia: The Orchid Tree With Butterfly Leaves
A flowering legume whose blooms mimic orchids and whose twin-lobed leaves fold like a butterfly's wings or a camel's foot — including a sterile hybrid so admired it became the emblem of Hong Kong.
- 04
Trees№ 0053 minAfrican Tulip Tree: The Flame of the Forest That Squirts Water
A blazing scarlet-flowered giant whose unopened buds hold water children squirt at each other — planted worldwide for its beauty and now one of the worst invaders of the Pacific islands.
- 05
Trees№ 0624 minCannonball Tree: The Sacred Tree of Trunk-Grown Bombs
A rainforest relative of the brazil nut that flowers in gorgeous fragrant blooms straight from its trunk, then hangs it with huge, heavy, foul-smelling cannonballs — and is revered as sacred in India.
- 06
Trees№ 4313 minSilk-Floss Tree: The Spiny-Bellied Tree That Rains Pink Flowers
A relative of the kapok that swells a green, water-storing trunk studded with fierce conical spines, blazes pink-and-cream in autumn, and packs its pods with the same silky floss as its cousin.
- 07
Trees№ 1913 minGolden Shower Tree: Thailand's Cascade of Gold
A legume that hangs itself with cascading chains of pure golden flowers — the national tree and flower of Thailand — and swings long dark pods whose sticky pulp is an ancient gentle laxative.
- 08
Trees№ 0503 minBombax: The Red Silk-Cotton Tree That Blazes on Bare Branches
A big Indian relative of the kapok that erupts in huge waxy red flowers on its leafless branches each spring — pouring nectar for birds, packing its pods with silky floss, and feeding the season with edible blooms.
- 09
Trees№ 5363 minYlang-Ylang: The Flower at the Heart of Chanel No. 5
A tropical tree whose drooping yellow flowers pour out one of the most intoxicating scents in nature — distilled into the perfume oil at the centre of Chanel No. 5 and much of modern perfumery.
- 10
Trees№ 0773 minChampak: The Golden Magnolia of Temple and Perfume
A tall tropical magnolia whose small golden-orange flowers carry one of the most intoxicating scents in the plant world — sacred across South and Southeast Asia, worn in the hair, offered to the gods, and captured in fine perfume.