Caesalpinia pulcherrima Seeds | Pride of Barbados
LATIN NAME: Caesalpinia pulcherrima
COMMON NAME: Pride of Barbados, Peacock Flower
Plant Profile
The plant is a sprawling shrub two to four metres tall, occasionally reaching five in the tropics, with a few scattered prickles on the young wood that earn it its use as a boundary hedge. Leaves are bipinnate, with five to nine pairs of pinnae and a neat set of small oblong leaflets along each, so the foliage reads as fine and ferny rather than heavy. Shrubs shed most of their leaves in a dry season and flush again when the rain returns.
Flowers are crowded into narrow racemes twenty to forty centimetres long at the tip of the shoot. Four of the five petals are broad with crinkled, wavy margins and the fifth is narrower and shaped differently, sitting slightly apart; the ten stamens push far beyond the petals on filaments that carry red, orange or yellow according to the form. Because buds at the base of a raceme open before those at the tip, a single spike carries tight buds, fresh flowers and fading flowers at once, which is what keeps the display running through the warm season rather than arriving in one short flush. The fruit that follows is a thin, flat pod six to twelve centimetres long that dries on the bush, twists and splits to release six to eight flattened, mottled seeds, each wearing a coat hard enough to keep it sound in the soil for years.
The seeds are strongly purgative and are toxic when eaten raw, and livestock have been poisoned by them. Old practice used them only in small, carefully measured doses, and no part of the shrub should be treated as food. Handle seed for sowing with gloves and keep it away from small children and from any store of edible legumes.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus Caesalpinia is defined in part by its chemistry: cassane-type furanoditerpenes appear across the group and serve as a chemical marker for it. Extracts of peacock flower leaves, seed and pod feature in published screening programmes for larvicidal activity against mosquitoes and for antimicrobial activity, and the same diterpene skeleton keeps turning up in pharmacology work on the genus. Colour forms matter commercially as well: the common red-orange selection, a yellow form with the same flower shape, and compact selections that flower on a shrub small enough for a large pot. Growers who want a particular colour should raise plants from semi-hardwood cuttings of the parent bush rather than from open-sown seed.
Uses & Benefits
Pride of Barbados is the national flower of Barbados and appears on the island’s coat of arms beside the bearded fig, which tells you how completely the species has been taken into local identity. The woody, prickly growth that made it useful as a flower-fence gave the plant one of its oldest garden roles, and the same habit makes it a durable screen in hot, dry gardens today.
Where the plant is hardy it makes an informal hedge that flowers for most of the warm months; where frost cuts it down, grow it in a large container and move it under cover before the cold. Flowers come on the current season’s growth, so cut the old wood back hard in late winter and feed lightly, since a plant in rich soil makes leaf at the expense of bloom. A standard with a clean trunk is easy to build by rubbing out the lower shoots while the plant is young. Give it full sun, sharp drainage and an average soil, water deeply but infrequently, and watch for caterpillars and spider mites if it spends the winter under glass.
Growing from Seed
Rub a file across the seed coat away from the eye until the pale inner layer shows, or tip the seed into hot water and leave it to cool overnight. Sow one to two centimetres deep in a gritty mix of loam, coarse sand and sieved compost, keep the pan warm, and move the seedlings on as soon as the first pair of true leaves unfolds, because legumes resent root disturbance and the taproot should never be allowed to kink. Pot on gently and keep the young plants in bright light from the start.
Pinch out the growing tip of young plants to force a bushy frame, and stake anything that is to be grown as a standard. Water a container freely in hot weather and let it drain completely, and never let the pot sit in a saucer of water. Outdoors the shrub is usually left alone by pests; every part of the plant should still be kept out of reach of children and pets.
Our Take
This is the tropical legume to grow when you want a long season of colour rather than a short, spectacular flush, and it rewards hard cutting back with more flower. If you like the shape of the bloom, compare it with the yellow bird of paradise, a hardier relative with the same long filaments, and with the royal poinciana, whose larger canopy carries a comparable display on a much bigger tree. The coral tree is another warm-climate legume built around a flower shape that looks nothing like a pea.
Related Reading
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