Feather & Flame
Leaves made of leaves made of leaves. A single flamboyant leaf is divided, then divided again: 20 to 40 pairs of side branches, each holding 10 to 20 pairs of tiny leaflets. Do the math and one leaf can carry anywhere from about 800 to over 3,000 of these little green stitches. Behind them, the tree's famous blossoms glow like embers.
The flamboyant lights up streets across the tropics, including here in northern Belize, but its wild home is the dry forests of western Madagascar, where it's now rare. And those long, woody seed pods it grows? In the Caribbean, they're dried and shaken as a rattle called the shak-shak. From far away it's all fire. Up close, it's feathers.
This was a continuous moment of noticing for me. Lucky enough to host a flamboyant in my front yard, the months it’s blooming are my favorite. My favorite colour is orange, so naturally, I’m quite obsessed with these flowers. They are fleeting, only lasting a couple months, so it makes the bloom even more special.
What we protect begins with what we notice. My noticing leads to The Wild Land Project.
About This Image
Common name: Flamboyant (royal poinciana, flame tree)
Scientific name: Delonix regia
Location: Northern Belize
Collection: The Fabric of Nature
