Delonix elata (L.) Gamble
Poinciana elata L.
Eng.: White gul mohur, creamy peacock flower, tiger bean, poinciana. Ara.: Oogoay.
Tree up to 15 m in height, hermaphrodite, deciduous, with trunk often highly branched and open and spreading crown, with pendant branches. Stem and branches with smooth bark, greyish-brown, shiny. Leaves 6-20 cm, alternate, bipinnate, petiolate, with subulate deciduous stipules, and 4-6(9) pairs of pinnae, each with (8)10-15(25) pairs of leaflets (4)6-12(17) × 1-4(5) mm, sessile or subsessile, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, rounded apex and sometimes mucronate, attenuated at the base, entire margin, appressed-puberulous on both surfaces, a light green on the upper side and dull green or yellowish-green on the underside. Inflorescences racemiform, corymbiform, terminal, with 5-20 flowers with long pubescent pedicels —the lower flowers with longer pedicels—. Calyx 2-3 cm, with 5 sepals fused into a basal dome-shaped structure, with teeth c. 1.8 cm, opened in star-shape, oblong-lanceolate, keeled, fleshy, apiculate, green. Corolla with 5 petals 16-38 × 18-42 mm, patent, oblong-obovate or obovate, with scalloped-crispate margin, the upper petal predominantly yellow and smaller than the others, these white at first turning yellowish. Stamens 10, unequal, with reddish-brown or orange anthers, and filament (3)5-10(11) cm, red-brown, very hairy towards the base. Ovary hairy. Pod 13-25 × 2.1-3.7 cm, pendulous, linear-oblong, highly compressed, attenuated at both ends, reddish-brown or purplish-brown, with 4-8 seeds. Seeds 12-15 × 5-8 mm, ellipsoid, compressed, brown, with dark-brown edges.
Flowering:
From December.
Fruiting:
May to July.
Habitat:
In savannah type environments dominated by Acacia sp.
Distribution:
Eastern Africa (from Egypt to Tanzania) and western Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen). It is found as an introduced and naturalised species in other parts of the world
Observations:
Both Libya and Egypt the flamboyant, D. regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf. (Poinciana regia Bojer ex Hook.) is cultivated as an ornamental, a tree native to Madagascar which differs from the previous by its larger flowers with crimson petals, with a standard larger than the other petals with white and yellow blemishes; leaves 30-50 cm, 20-40, with pairs of pinnae, each with 10-20 pairs of leaflets, and pods, up to 60 × 5 cm, initially green, turning brown and hardening when mature.
Conservation status:
A relatively common species, not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level (Rivers, 2014). In the Red List of vascular plants of Egypt (Flora Aegyptiaca Vol 1, 2000) it is listed as “Rare”.