The name is the description. Long drooping chains of yellow flowers hang from every branch like a shower frozen mid-fall, and for a few weeks the tree is the brightest thing on the street.
Where you’ll see it
Gardens, parks and streets in towns across Guanacaste, planted for exactly this. It is the national tree of Thailand and it has settled in happily here.
What to know
It flowers on bare or nearly bare branches at the hot end of the dry season, and the display is long enough to enjoy properly. The pods that follow are up to half a metre long, black and cylindrical, and contain seeds in a sticky sweet pulp with a strong laxative effect. Dogs sometimes chew them. That ends predictably. Otherwise a handsome, undemanding tree.
