Erythrina crista-galli
Encyclopedia
Erythrina crista-galli is a flowering tree in the family Fabaceae
, native to Argentina
, Uruguay
, Brazil
and Paraguay
. It is widely planted as a street or garden tree in other countries, most notably in California
(in the United States
). It is known by several common names within South America: ceibo, seíbo (Spanish
), corticeira (Portuguese
) and the more ambiguous bucaré
, to name a few. In English it is often known as the Cockspur Coral Tree.
The tree's flower
is the national flower
of Argentina
(since 23 December 1942) and Uruguay
.
This species characteristically grows wild in gallery forest
ecosystems along watercourses, as well as in swamp
s and wetland
s. In urban settings, it is often planted in parks for its bright red flowers.
, the girth of its trunk measuring 50 cm (19.7 in). Normally it grows 5–8 m (16.4–26.2 ft) tall, although some individuals, such as in the Argentine provinces of Salta
, Jujuy
and Tucumán
, can grow up to 10 m (32.8 ft).
The root
is a taproot
with nodules
produced by nitrogen fixing
bacteria. The bacteria live in symbiosis
with the tree, facilitating the tree's absorption of nitrogen in return for organic substances which the bacteria need. The tree's trunk is woody with irregular, spiny branches. These branches form a layer without definite form and die after flowering.
The tree flowers in the summer, from October to April in their native South America and from April to October in the northern hemisphere. It Usually blooms from November to February The red flower
, arranged in inflorescence
s of the raceme
type, is pentameric, complete, and of bilateral symmetry. Its calyx
is gamosepalous, like a little red thimble. The corolla, like that of other legumes like common beans, is butterfly-shaped; however, the largest petal, called the "standard", is arranged in the lower part. The two of the petals called "wings" are so small that they are practically hidden within the calyx. The remaining two petals partially fuse together on occasion and form the flower's keel or "carina"; this protects its reproductive organs. The androecium consists of ten stamen
s, one free and nine united by their filaments (gynostemial androecium). The unicarpel gynoecium is welded between the stamens like a knife in its sheath.
The flowers are rich in nectar and get visited by insect
s, which usually have to crawl underneath the carina and thus pollinate
the flowers.
The tree's fruit is monocarpic and dry, of the legume type, and no more than a few centimeters in length. The chestnut-brown seeds are cylindrical in form and are arranged sparsely throughout the seedpod's interior. The seed germ contains hypogeous cotyledons - the seeds stay underground upon germination.
Fabaceae
The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species...
, native to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
. It is widely planted as a street or garden tree in other countries, most notably in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
(in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
). It is known by several common names within South America: ceibo, seíbo (Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
), corticeira (Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
) and the more ambiguous bucaré
Erythrina
Erythrina is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It contains about 130 species, which are distributed in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. They are trees, growing up to in height...
, to name a few. In English it is often known as the Cockspur Coral Tree.
The tree's flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
is the national flower
Floral emblem
In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. Different processes have been used to adopt these symbols - some are conferred by...
of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(since 23 December 1942) and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
.
This species characteristically grows wild in gallery forest
Gallery forest
Gallery forests are evergreen forests that form as corridors along rivers or wetlands and project into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands or deserts....
ecosystems along watercourses, as well as in swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
s and wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
s. In urban settings, it is often planted in parks for its bright red flowers.
Description
Erythrina crista-galli is a small treeTree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
, the girth of its trunk measuring 50 cm (19.7 in). Normally it grows 5–8 m (16.4–26.2 ft) tall, although some individuals, such as in the Argentine provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
, Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
and Tucumán
Tucumán Province
Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...
, can grow up to 10 m (32.8 ft).
The root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
is a taproot
Taproot
A taproot is an enlarged, somewhat straight to tapering plant root that grows vertically downward. It forms a center from which other roots sprout laterally.Plants with taproots are difficult to transplant...
with nodules
Root nodule
Root nodules occur on the roots of plants that associate with symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, capable plants form a symbiotic relationship with a host-specific strain of bacteria known as rhizobia...
produced by nitrogen fixing
Nitrogen fixation
Nitrogen fixation is the natural process, either biological or abiotic, by which nitrogen in the atmosphere is converted into ammonia . This process is essential for life because fixed nitrogen is required to biosynthesize the basic building blocks of life, e.g., nucleotides for DNA and RNA and...
bacteria. The bacteria live in symbiosis
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
with the tree, facilitating the tree's absorption of nitrogen in return for organic substances which the bacteria need. The tree's trunk is woody with irregular, spiny branches. These branches form a layer without definite form and die after flowering.
The tree flowers in the summer, from October to April in their native South America and from April to October in the northern hemisphere. It Usually blooms from November to February The red flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
, arranged in inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
s of the raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
type, is pentameric, complete, and of bilateral symmetry. Its calyx
Sepal
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...
is gamosepalous, like a little red thimble. The corolla, like that of other legumes like common beans, is butterfly-shaped; however, the largest petal, called the "standard", is arranged in the lower part. The two of the petals called "wings" are so small that they are practically hidden within the calyx. The remaining two petals partially fuse together on occasion and form the flower's keel or "carina"; this protects its reproductive organs. The androecium consists of ten stamen
Stamen
The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...
s, one free and nine united by their filaments (gynostemial androecium). The unicarpel gynoecium is welded between the stamens like a knife in its sheath.
The flowers are rich in nectar and get visited by insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s, which usually have to crawl underneath the carina and thus pollinate
Pollination
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...
the flowers.
The tree's fruit is monocarpic and dry, of the legume type, and no more than a few centimeters in length. The chestnut-brown seeds are cylindrical in form and are arranged sparsely throughout the seedpod's interior. The seed germ contains hypogeous cotyledons - the seeds stay underground upon germination.
Synonyms
Synonyms are as follows:- Corallodendron crista-galli (L.) Kuntze
- Erythrina crista-galli L. var. hasskarlii Backer
- Erythrina crista-galli L. var. leucochlora A.Lombardo
- Erythrina fasciculata Benth.
- Erythrina laurifolia Jacq.
- Erythrina pulcherrima Tod.
- Erythrina speciosa Tod.
- E. speciosa Andrews is a distinct species
- Micropteryx crista-galli Walp.
- Micropteryx fasciculata Walp.
- Micropteryx laurifolia Walp.
External links
- John Stephen Glasby, Dictionary of Plants Containing Secondary Metabolites, Published by CRC Press
- Images of Legume, Seeds - Flavon's Wild herb and Alpine plants Día de la Flor Nacional - "National Flower Day", in Argentina's Ministry of Health and Environment website (scientific description, pictures).