Punaliekkipuu – Delonix regia

Trunk is large with a girth of up to 2 m, buttressed, and branching near the base. Bark is smooth, greyish-brown. Leaves are alternate, bipinnate, light green, feathery, 20-60 cm long. Each leaf bears 10-25 pairs of pinnae 5-12 cm long, each pinna bearing 12-40 pairs of small oblong, stalkless, minutely pubescent, leaflets. At the base of the leafstalk, there are 2 small pinnate stipules. Flowers are borne in 15-30 cm long loose clusters near the tips of the branches. Flowers are 5-13 cm across, slightly fragrant, with 5 equal petals, on slender petioles 5-8 cm long. Petals are 4, ca. 6 x 2.5 cm, broadly spoon shaped, orange-red, widely extended and bending backwards before falling. One of the petals is longer and narrower than the others, whitish inside with red spots and streaks. Sepals are 5, thick, about 2.5 cm long, pointed, green outside and reddish within. Stamens are 10, filaments red. Pistil has a hairy ovary and slender style about 3 cm long. Fruit is green when young, turning to dark brown, hard, flat, woody pods, 30-75 x 5-7.6 cm, ending in a short beak when mature, with many horizontally partitioned seed chambers inside, indehiscent, finally splitting into 2 parts. The conspicuous pods hang down and remain attached most of the year even when the trees are leafless. Seeds are 30-45, hard, greyish, glossy, to 2 cm long, oblong, arranged at right angles to the length of the pod.