I know that this is Couroupita guianensis. I'm posting it because this is the third time I've gone looking for Eric La Fountaine's writeup on it, forgetting that that was a Botany Photo of the Day, not on the forums, and it takes me forever to find it. So I'm posting the link to that here. http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/2010/01/couroupita_guianensis_1.php And while I'm at it, the earlier POTD posting, referenced in that article, is at http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/2007/07/couroupita_guianensis.php These are two trees in the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. In the first photo, the closer one, on the left, was acquired from Kew Botanical Gardens 45 years ago to provide company for the one behind it, to the right, which was acquired from Kew 90 years ago. One of the comments in the POTD posting was that these trees require cross-pollination from another tree, though the guide's comment was more about sharing of underground nutrients. Third photo is the younger one; fourth the older one. Flowers were only on the older one, but those cannonballs on the younger one must have come from flowers. That would have been fun to see.
Very cool. Thanks for posting. I saw one of those at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens near Miami, Florida.
I visited the Foster BG trees twice this year. The second time I took the tour, and forgetting the bit in the POTD posting about the foul-smelling fruit, said I'd be interested to see the fruit inside the shell. So our guide smashed one to the ground. Strong and foul. Truly terrible. And the area had smelled so beautiful from the flowers just seconds before. I was surprised that it seemed almost as large as the shell, as it seemed on shaking the shell that the fruit inside would be smaller.
