I would like help in identifying a flowering tree I recently saw in Central America. I'm attaching a photo of a flower. It's the size of a banana. The tree is in the background. It appears to flower and produce fruit at the same time. The fruit look like green coconuts.
I think paintbrush trees (pseudobombax) don't have leaves when they flower, and this one was quite leafy.
That's it! It is a pachira aquatica. Thanks! It was growing in wet land on the shore of Lake Nicaragua.
I just learned about this one when I was in Florida two weeks ago. The "large fleshy seeds in the brown football-sized fruit are eaten fresh or cooked", according to the book put out by the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead. We only saw fist-sized fruits. The book also says "the large buttress roots make it stable in moist locations". The first photo is from the Fruit and Spice Park; the second is from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
Braided seedlings grown in trays are a feature of outlets here during the winter, recently they had them at CostCo for instance.
