Tabebuia rosea - Pink Trumpet tree in Mauritius

The Pink Trumpet Tree also known as Pope's Chalice . Country pear tree . Poui rosea . Tecoma . Comoro head of the family: bignoniaceae. Origin: Native to Northern South America (from Mexico to Colombia, and Northern Venezuela). Use(s): Hard, heavy, fine-grained wood, resistant to lignivorous fungi, used, among other things, for making wheels, balls, and railroad ties; sometimes used in cabinetry. Biology: Full sun species requiring a rich and well drained soil. Must be protected from strong winds. Description: A large tree of about 25 m high with deciduous leaves. Columnar trunk, often strongly swollen at the base, initially smooth and longitudinally striped. Bark grey to brown, rough and cracked when the tree is old. Leaves opposite, palmate type with five petiolated leaflets, lanceolate oval, pointed or tapered at the top, conical or blunt at the base, leathery, dark green in color. The young leaves are often three-leafed. Loose inflorescences on branch tips. The flowers are type 5 and zygomorphic, with a calyx of 1 to 2 cm long, glandular to scaled. The tubular corolla, which varies in color from white to pale pink to lilac, opens into five crinkled lobes. The inside of the throat, at first yellowish, becomes white later. The fruits are capsules of almost 40 cm long, looking like pods when they are green because narrowly cylindrical (1,5 cm diameter), glandular to scaly. The seeds have two membranous wings.