The Flamboyant
THE FLAMBOYANT tree, which graces many of the streets in Georgetown, has been consistently voted among the top five most beautiful flowering trees in the world. This tree, with the scientific name Delonix regia, is also known a Royal Poinciana.
In some parts of the world, it is known as Gulmohar,  Peacock Flower, Flame of the Forest and Flame Tree.
Flamboyant trees were planted on both sides of some streets in Georgetown, with equal spacing, in the early and mid-1900s, and  many of these early ones are still standing.
The tree is native to Madagascar and Zambia, and has been widely planted for the last 150 years or so as a garden and avenue tree in both dry and moist regions of tropical India, as far as Jammu in the northwest.
It is also one of the most extensively planted ornamental trees in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world.
It has been grown successfully in such far-flung places as Burma, Jamaica, Nigeria, Borneo, South Africa, Egypt, Tanzania and Uganda. It is also been planted in southern Florida, including The Florida Keys, southern California, Bermuda, Mexico, Brazil and throughout the West Indies.
In Sri Lanka, it is grown as an ornamental.
The name ‘poinciana’ is in honour of Monsieur de Poincy, the first French governor of St. Kitts, who introduced the plant to the island.
The flower is the National Flower of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Its crown, spreading with long, nearly horizontal branches, form a diameter that is wider than the tree’s height, thus making it a perfect canopy.
It is a canopy under which a car can be parked, or picnics can be held.
Here in Guyana  and many parts of the tropical and sub-tropical world, it is planted as a ‘shade tree’ .
The tree remains leafless during the dry season, with the new leaves appearing at the end of the heat.
In Guyana, each tree seems to follow its own rhythm of shedding of leaves and flowering.
Pods of the previous year keep hanging in there until they are dropped by wind currents, where they rot on the ground, releasing the seeds. Flowers are bisexual.
The tree produces three different-coloured flowers: Flame-coloured orange, yellow and orange.
It is propagated by seed, but there is no guarantee that if you plant a seed from a tree producing flame-coloured orange flowers that the resultant tree would produce a similar flower.
“You might end up with a tree bearing yellow flowers.  But anyway, any which way the flowers come,  the flamboyant is a gem of a tree, especially when it’s  in full bloom,” said a member of the Horticultural Society of Guyana.
Not so long ago (perhaps even now), the antler and the filaments of the flamboyant tree were materials for a fun children’s game: ‘Cock fight’.  
One kid would hook the antler of his flower under the antler of a flower being held by his /her opponent.
Then they would pull towards each other, together.
Whomsoever’s antler fell off   as a result of the pull would be the loser, one not-so-old person recalled.