A rambling multi-stemmed shrub or small tree, spreading, up to 5 m and fast-growing. Bipinnate leaves with one pair of pinnae each carrying five to eight pairs of narrowly ovate to obovate leaflets, the distal ones 15–84 mm; new growth auburn and thickly hairy. The show is the powder-puff ball of conspicuous dark crimson stamens, about 7 cm across; the genus name means beautiful stamens and the epithet blood-red head.
Habitat
Parks, gardens, roadsides and hedges, widely grown in the tropics and subtropics in full sun.
Distribution
Native to Bolivia; common in Singapore's parks and housing estates, grown in Guangdong, Fujian and Taiwan, and in Okinawa.
Season and behaviour
Flowers all year in the tropics, most after the rains in Singapore; August to March in southern China. The buds look like a cluster of little red berries, and the stamens wilt two or three days after opening.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
Every stamen in the puff lights up against the light, its finest illumination, against a dark background; head-on for the radiating stamens, side-on for the hemispherical outline. Crimson bleeds in direct sun, so a stop under. Berry-like buds and open puffs share a branch, so take them together. Sunbirds come for the nectar.
Photographic styles
Red powder puffs glowing against the light; buds and puffs on one branch.
Similar species
Calliandra surinamensis (pink and white, smaller puffs); silk tree (a tree with smaller pink puffs in summer); sensitive plant (small pink balls, herbaceous).
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. No photographs yet: only photos cleared for commercial use with credit will be added.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
