Beautiful but invasive pest - African Tulip Tree

 If any of you are foolish enough to think that TPP is leaving the tropics and returning to the polar vortex now visiting the upper Midwest with truly arctic temperatures then you're crazy.  TPP is certain that temperatures like that will freeze some of his plant collection.  But more on this later this spring. Here in Maui, it is "spring" of a sorts and one of the ornamental trees that is in flower is the African Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata) a member of the Bignon family.  It has a big flowers that are bright orange.  It is a totally gaudy tree.  Supposedly perching birds visit these flower to get an interesting reward, a drink of water.  The flower buds are filled with water, and it you nip off the end of the calyx of an intact bud, and squeeze the base it will squirt out a stream.  Kids always know this trick.  The image shows that the flower is basically a cup.  A tree in flower has lots of flowers and flowers over a longish time.  Unfortunately in wetter areas, this tree is invasive along streams. And it has become a member of what TPP calls UTF (ubiquitous tropical flora).  It's certainly pretty, but what a pain.   

Tropical garden color

Even if UTF (ubiquitous tropical flora) is a bit over done at times, a number of its components are very colorful, very attractive plants, and the red powder puff (Calliandra haematocephala, a mimosid legume) is one of my favorites because its display is both gaudy and long lasting. The nicely landscaped beach house recently occupied use vegetation very effectively to be both attractive and to generate privacy. But the red powder puff inflorescences (note the heads of flower buds) generated even more color than its flowers here in far northern Queensland by attracting rainbow lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) each morning providing them with some nectar for brekkies. As the generic name indicates they have brush-like tongues for swabbing up nectar. Took this picture from the veranda while having brekkies myself.

Plant ID - UTF my speciality

The internet has brought a whole new dimension to us plant identifiers. In the old days people with plastic bags of plant parts or telephone calls ("it's got green leaves and red berries; what is it?") all got routed to the Phactor, but they hadn't travelled very far. Now specimens come from all over the world and from lots of strange places, and while this botanist has gotten around pretty well, it's still only a couple of dozen countries. So an old buddy sends along an image and asks what he's taken a picture of in Dominica, an island the Phactor has never visited. Ah, but this one was easy because it's part of the UTF - ubiquitious tropical flora, a group of plants that's been moved around so much most people have no idea where the plant is really from or what it's really called. In some tropical places, people may never even see a native plant. Many members of the UTF pick up new common names in their new locations. The picture is pretty good, although it looked better in the horizontal, but blogger rotated it for me (?), and several obvious features should narrow things down for you right away. Note the big, glossy, opposite leaves and the white flowers with 5 corolla lobes flaring from a narrow tube. You should have thought that's in the Rubiaceae right away. Now the fruit is a bit unusual for this family, but very distinctive for this plant, which is often called noni, or Indian mulberry, or cheese fruit among others. Morinda citrifolia naturalizes near beach areas now in lots of countries although it's a native of SE Asia. As one of the common names suggests, the fruit is not to everyone's liking; think limburger cheese. Since the fruit is composed from many flowers, this is a multiple fruit, like pineapple. The Phactor scores again!