Rainbow Shower

The rainbow shower tree is a hybrid of two tropical cassias, and it behaves like a tree that cannot decide which color it loves best. Pink, yellow, and coral trumpet flowers hang in long, loose clusters that turn the whole canopy into a living lei.

It is a common street and park tree in Hawaiʻi, chosen partly because it stays manageable and partly because no one can resist the show. After a heavy bloom, the ground below looks like a dropped scarf.

The flowers are light and papery, but the colors are saturated enough to carry a whole photograph. Building this one is like sorting a box of sunset.