The pics illustrate flowers/seedpods of a 3m to 5m tree which is known locally as a Rain Tree. We have been unable to find its botanical name or its origin. It's not indiginous to our area - 150kms south of Durban in KwaZuluNatal on the East Coast of South Africa. This display appears in our autumn (April/May). Anyone out there who can identify it for us?
Your tree really reminds me of Koelreuteria. We grow K. paniculata. Common name Pride of India or Golden rain tree.However the leaflets are coarsely toothed on our tree. Could it praps be K. Henryi, unfortunately I can't find any good pictures of the leaves on the net.Hope this helps.
Thanks for Koelreuteria lead - unfortunately flowers look very different (Wikipadia and huntingdonbotanical.org) and very yellow. Our tree's flowers tend to be cerise - fading with rain or time. Any more suggestions?
Hi Blossom, can't see any flowers in your pictures,can only see the seeds.A picture of the flowers might be a big help.Could you please split a seed pod open and post a pic of that?
Thank you all for your help in identifying our "Rain Tree". It looks like it is definitely one of the Koelreuterias - bipinnata being the most likely candidate. Will try and photograph a split seed pod tomorrow and post the pic. This has been a bit of a communal project - friends have a number of trees on their property and there appears to be no difficulty in propagating - they come up as seedlings by themselves. I see some varieties are considered weeds in Florida. Might not be a great idea for propagation here as our climate is similar to Florida's and we have enough invasive aliens to cope with, without adding to the problem.
Fixed it for you - and no, it wouldn't have been too late (see Edit button in lower right corner of your posts).
Hi to you Luddite - attached is a pic of the Rain Tree seedpods - opened. Unfortunately no flowers - too late in the season - we're about to go into 'autumn' and of course 'winter' follows. Not a great hardship - the nicest months are April to June - July can be OK as well - August is our miserable month - the wind blows and the nights are cool. Thanks again for helping with the ID.
Thank you Blossom for adding the pic of the seeds. It worried me a little that the edges of your leaves were not toothed i.e. that they were entire. I have now found excellent photos of Koelreuteria bipinnata which shows the leaves with smooth edges (apparently it can be either toothed or entire.). It also shows the flowers. http://www.hsu.edu/default.aspx?id=6384 Hope this helps Luddite.
