Royal Poinciana

Royal poinciana is sometimes called the flame tree, and the name is not an exaggeration. It grows into a broad, flat umbrella and then covers itself with scarlet and orange flowers so completely that the leaves almost disappear.

The flowers are small, but they mass together in huge clusters, and when the petals fall they carpet the ground in red. Children in tropical towns know to look for the first bloom as the signal that summer has truly arrived.

It is a tree with no modesty at all, and that is its gift. Some things are meant to be loud and temporary and impossible to ignore.