Royal Poinciana - Delonix regia

The Royal Poinciana tree (Species name: Delonix regia) is native to Madagascar and is an attractive ornamental tree that is widely cultivated around the world in temperate climates. The most striking characteristic of this tree is its brightly colored flowers that range from red to orange or even yellow. Because of these bright flowers this tree is sometimes called a "flame tree" (there are several different tree species that have this distinction).

The image above shows some of the flower color variation on the same tree.
The leaves of the Royal Poinciana are very similar to those of the Blue Jacaranda (although they are not in the same family) and if the trees and young and not in bloom they can be hard to tell apart. Check this link for a discussion of how to distinguish them.

Like the Jacaranda the Royal Poinciana makes for a good shade tree partly because of the fact that it tends to grow not very tall and with a broad crown like the one in the picture above.

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