Do you konw what kind of tree this is? We at first thought that it is a Fire Tree, but those normally have red flowers rather than yellow.
These trees grew up in our garden from seeds, and we have no clear idea what they are. If you know please do post a comment and put us out of our misery.
Comments
Yellow Flower Tree
Can you post a picture of the leaves? Also what do the seeds look like?
Yellow Flower Tree
Reminds me of a climbing plant I started off from seed here in England some years ago. Tropaeolum I think was the genus. Is yours a climber? Some details of growing habit might help. Then I could look it up for you in our Royal Horticultural Society Compendium of garden plants.
Meggie
Yellow Flower Tree
It’s definitely a member of [color=green]the pea family [/color](Leguminosae or Fabaceae) — Flower shape and compound-leave configuration are giveaways. Plant ID is one of my fave hobbies — will try to get you a more precise identification.
Sissy
[url=http://sisu.typepad.com]sisu[/url]
Yellow Flower Tree
Just noticed Bonsaimark’s ID above…looks good. Tamarind is, indeed, a member of the pea family — check this out: [url=http://www.tropilab.com/tamaridus-ind.html]Tamaridus indica[/url].
Sissy
Yellow Flower Tree
How ’bout [url=http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/systax/dendrologie/sophtetflw.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/systax/dendrologie/sophtetflw.htm&h=440&w=330&sz=25&tbnid=6xHJ2WhFeFUJ:&tbnh=122&tbnw=92&start=235&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dleguminosae%26start%3D220%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%7Clang_fr%26c2coff%3D1%26sa%3DN]Sophora tetraptera[/url]? It says flowers appear in May, but that’s perhaps in Native New Zealand or Germany, where the web site apparently originates??
Sissy
(Egad, someone make me stop. Once I start, I can’t stop ID’ing!)
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
Sissy
I think you may be correct. The flower is very close in appearance. Mahmood please save me some seeds if you can.
If this is Sophora tetraptera this is a prime expample of how adaptable plants are between climates and their native lands. Pretty tree as well!
Re(1): Yellow Flower Tree
no problem Mark, will save you some…
Sissy thank you for the help.
I’ve seen the references you posted, the flowers look a little different but the leaves are certainly very similar. Now that I know at least which family it belongs to, I’ll follow Mark’s suggestion in not watering them too much, but that might prove to be a bit difficult as the gardner will turn the hose at everything green until it dies of drowning! He’s an expert at that.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
here you go Mark. The seeds are quite small actually, I’ll take a picture of them tonight and put it up. I don’t think it’s Tamarind thoough as the tamarind has much much larger seeds than this tree.
The leaves look very much like a flower tree, that’s what threw us off. And the height of the trees that you see (this is a cluster of 4 or 5 at the same location) is only 4 months old yet they have grown to about 2 meters in height already.
Yellow Flower Tree
I believe it is a Tamarindus Indica. (or variety of) Save me some seeds please if you can.
Yellow Flower Tree
I’ll try to find the seeds and put them up as well.
Yellow Flower Tree
Mahmood I think your tree is Peltophorum pterocarpus (commonly called yellow poinciana or yellow flame tree here in the tropical north of Australia).
Quite difficult to tell from your pic but it has very showy golden pea-type flowers, followed by brittle smallish pods containing 1-4 seeds which persist on the tree, but grow easily when planted. Has fern-like foliage like the red poinciana (Delonix regia)
It is very adaptable to a wide variety of soils and locations, and my reference says that they’re found all over Asia and India.
Tamarindus indica grows all over the tropics but the flowers do not look like as in your pic.
They are pale yellow with brown to red-brown markings, and smaller.
The tamarind has a thin-skinned fleshy capsule-like fruit which is delicious and you have to spit out the seeds contained within. I make a fabulous drink out of them. Tamarind is used a lot in Asian cooking. I don’t think this is your tree. Tamarinds are extremely slow-growing.
Louise.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
Maybe it is, as it is quite young it’s a bit difficult to visualise it becoming that huge tree as seen here. Also the flowers are different that thos shown on the picture.
I asked Frances if she still has the seeds but she couldn’t remember where she put them. So what I’ll do is go home early this afternoon and take more shots of the plant for us to identify it.
if the link doesn’t work because the system broke it up, here it is again:
http://www.hear.org/starr/hiplants/images/600max/html/starr_030514_0019_peltophorum_pterocarpum.htm
Yellow Flower Tree
Mahmood you’re right, it is not Peltophorum pterocarpus, but neither is it a tamarind.
I feel it does grow around here, so I’ve asked the local botanic gardens to ID it, sending your pix to them. Excellent photos and they should have no trouble recognising your plant.
Will get back to you ASAP.
Have you planted any alamanders? There’s a brilliant yellow and a dusky pinky one, both are showy climbers and I know they grow in the ME. Excellent for along walls and fences.
Louise.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
Thanks Louise.
Yellow Flower Tree
That’s what happens when you grow a tree from seeds. 🙂 It can be hard to identify because it may have substantial changes from the parent tree.
For instance, if you want a particular variety of olive tree you do not plant a seed. You graft a cutting from an existing tree onto a rootstock so you have an exact genetic copy of the variety you want. Otherwise, you may grow a new type of tree (abet, still an olive).
So sorry, but to answer, it may not look exactly like any known tree if grown from a seed.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
Ah didn’t know that.. silly me thought that a seed will produce an exact copy of the parent. I must confess that I don’t know much (read extremely little) about gardening and plants, but willing to learn.
In a worst-case scenario, we’ll leave it to grow and it will show itself whenever it wants.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
I was speaking to my gardner yesterday and he said something about this plant that didn’t compute. He said that in his country (India) they let this fast-growing plant grow to “fertilise” the soil specifically to plant rice in the paddies, and also they grind its stems down and feed it to the animals as it contains a lot of vitamins. At least that’s what I understood from him and there is no guarantee that what he says is true!
Interesting to find out what it is though. I think it’s my turn now to ferrit out the agricultural dept in Bahrain (if there is one) and try to get them to identify it. Will report back…
Yellow Flower Tree
Sound like a neem tree but the leaves look different. UNLESS these leaves are in a juvenile state of developement. HMMMMM
ciao!
mark
Yellow Flower Tree
Hi Mahmood
I may have a picture and description of your plant, how do I attach it to these notes.
Yellow Flower Tree
Mahmood I’ve had no response from the two most likely sources to identify your photos.
It is summer in Australia and I expect everyone is away on vacation.
After much thought I believe your mystery plant to be a member of the Cassia family.
A genus of 600 species, there are 40 alone in Australia and most have yellow pea-type flowers as in your pix. Lots are shrubs and most are fast growing.
I can’t be more specific than that as there are so many, and they grow in so many different environments. I would say yours is one that tolerates a salty dry environment.
If I hear back from my vacationing plant experts I’ll certainly let you know.
Keep up the good work, it gets everyone thinking and that’s how real democracy develops.
Louise.
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
you could either email me and I’ll do the necessary, or you could upload the image into one of the free picture sharing sites and then link to it by entering it’s URL in a comment. The URL link could be in the form [ img ] url of image [ /img ] (without the spaces).
looking forward to it…
Yellow Flower Tree
Just a note re leguminous plants being grown and then tilled back in to replenish the soil: A common practice among American farmers, who alternate plantings of alfafa and cash crops. Here’s the scoop, from Wikipedia:
Some nitrogen fixing bacteria, such as Rhizobium, live in root nodules of leguminous plants (such as peas or beans). Here they form a symbiotic relationship with the plant, producing ammonia in exchange for supplies of carbohydrate. Low nutrient containing soils can be planted with leguminous plants to enrich them with nitrogen; see crop rotation.
Fun stuff. Can’t wait to find out exactly which plant you have growing in your garden, Mahmood!
Sissy
[url=http://sisu.typepad.com]sisu[/url]
Re(1): Yellow Flower Tree
Their reproduction is enough like us that here (in the US) people often call the talk they have with their children to explain where babies come from ‘the birds and bees talk’ (they help move the pollen between flowers to make seeds).
Some trees even have specifically male and female (like pistachios).
So, for fruit trees at least, do not use seeds unless you’ve researched it. A few types of trees have very little variation in their ‘offspring’ and are called ‘true from seed’. I still find them to be a risk and avoid them.
On the good side (re: using this to our advantage), large originations and governments do plant lots of seeds to try to find hardier varieties of trees… home gardeners sometime stumble onto new varieties too. My avocado tree is a dwarf variety a person discovered by growing a seed. When he noticed it only grew to 12 feet but still had full sized fruit he got a patent on his tree. On the other side for perspective (and back to pistachios) the US government raised 3000 from seed and only one became a viable variety. So, 3000 to 1, poor odds. 🙂
Yellow Flower Tree
Mahmood, moderate success with your mystery plant ID.
Dear Louise,
Mahmood, some limited success at identifying your mystery plant, from the local Botanic Gardens:
“From the photos available we can only identify to a generic level.
Sesbania sp.
If you require further identification we will need samples of the plant including flowers and fruits.”
I have looked up my reference books and the pictures of the two local members of this family indeed resemble your plant. I’ve scanned these pictures and text but how to send them to you?
Where do I find your email address? I tried attaching to this but it didn’t work.
Louise.
Yellow Flower Tree
With hats off to Louise, this looks like a match: [i]Sesbania herbacea[/i]: River Hemp Coffee Bean:
[url=http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cp4.hctx.net/jones/inbloom/images/august/SesbaniaHerbacea-lg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cp4.hctx.net/jones/inbloom/august/jjpb11.htm&h=300&w=260&sz=25&tbnid=BpvvKZufRz8J:&tbnh=110&tbnw=96&start=74&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSesbania%26start%3D60%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26sa%3DN]River Hemp Coffee Bean[/url]
Sissy
[url=http://sisu.typepad.com]sisu[/url]
Discovered: River Hemp Coffee Bean
Unbelievable! Thank you BOTH very much indeed for all that detective work!
Now I understand what the bloody gardner was talking about, another piece of the puzzle fits in. He sign-languaged that this is used back in his country by stripping the bark and useing it as rope to tie things with. If it is hemp then that would most definitely be one of its uses. And as for feeding both the ground and cattle, I guess it could be used for that too.
Many many thanks
Re: Yellow Flower Tree
Wonderful! Thank you very much Louise, you’re a star… you can email the pictures to me if you like on mahmood@mahmood.tv
many thanks again… let’s hope it is the one, I need to give you yet another problem from my garden 😉