Spathodea campanulata Seeds | African Tulip Tree

African Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata) with clusters of large flame-orange cup flowers — African Tulip Tree (*Spathodea campanulata*): Bignoniaceae, the flame-crowned giant whose buds hold water and whose seed needs nothing but warmth.

LATIN NAME: Spathodea campanulata

COMMON NAME: African Tulip Tree

Plant Profile

The African Tulip Tree is the loudest tree in the tropical garden. Twenty to twenty-five metres at full size, it raises dense terminal clusters of great flame-orange, velvet-budded, cup-shaped flowers above a broad crown of large compound leaves, and it flowers in flushes through much of the year in the right climate, a crown that glows like embers from a street away.

Childhoods across the tropics include its trick: the closed buds hold rainwater and squirt when squeezed, which earned it names built around water pistols wherever children and the tree share ground. The flowers are built for birds, and sunbirds work them at home.

Science & Biotechnology

Its ecology cuts two ways. In its native African forest gap it is a magnificent pioneer; across the Pacific islands it has become a serious invader, seeding into native forest and shading out understorey, and it appears on regional invasive-species lists that gardeners in island climates should read before planting. Its nectar carries compounds that distress honeybees, which the beekeeping literature of introduced ranges records with regular irritation.

The seed, by contrast, is cooperative: hundreds of thin winged seeds per pod, no dormancy, germinating within a week or two of sowing in warmth, the biology of a tree that colonises gaps fast. Pods split standing and fling seeds several metres from the crown. Seedlings are shade-intolerant from the first leaf, so bright light is not optional.

Uses & Benefits

As an ornamental it is spectacular: avenue, park and large-garden tree of the frost-free tropics, with a flowering show that defines the skyline wherever it is planted. The soft light wood serves local craft, and the tree’s fast shade has made it a village favourite across its introduced range. Its buds and young flowers enter local diets in parts of Africa, cooked before the chemistry offends.

The honest recommendation comes in two halves: plant it where it has room, warmth and an audience, and nowhere near native forest fragments in the humid islands where it spreads. Gardeners who plant it for the birds will not be disappointed at flowering time.

Growing from Seed

Sow the flat winged seeds on the surface of a fine compost, pressing them in without covering, and hold at twenty-five degrees with even moisture. Germination arrives within one to two weeks and is typically strong; the seedlings grow with tropical urgency.

Pot on early, give full sun, water generously, and stand back: young trees can pass head height in three years and flower not long after. Frost kills the top but established trees usually resprout, and the wood, being light and brittle, argues for siting away from roofs and power lines in windy country.

Our Take

The loudest seed in the packet and the fastest payoff. Warmth, light and a week is all the germination asks; the rest of the job is choosing a spot big enough, and checking the invasive lists if you garden on islands.

Tree Seeds