yellow trumpetbush   

yellow trumpetbush's description

Yellow trumpetbush is an attractive plant that is cultivated as an ornamental. It has sharply toothed, pinnate green leaves and bears large, showy, bright golden yellow trumpet-shaped flowers. It is drought-tolerant and grows well in warm climates. The flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The plant produces pods containing yellow seeds with papery wings. The plant is desirable fodder when it grows in fields grazed by livestock. Yellow trumpetbush is a ruderal species, readily colonizing disturbed, rocky, sandy, and cleared land and occasionally becoming an invasive weed.

Plant Morphology: Large shrubs to small trees. Leaves opposite, pinnate, with 3-7 leafl ets; leafl ets elliptic to elliptic-ovate. Flowers in short terminal panicles, bright yellow, fragrant. Calyx tubular-campanulate, ca. 4.5 mm long; lobes triangular, acuminate, ciliolate. Corolla tube 32-33 mm long, abruptly contracted at the base, sparse pubescent within and glandulose towards the base; lobes subequal. Stamens included; fi laments of longer stamens ca. 20 mm long; staminodes fi liform, 5-6 mm long. Disc shallow cupular, 5-lobed, fl eshy. Ovary ca. 3.5 mm long; style 18-20 mm long; stigma 2-lobed, lobes oval to ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm long. Capsule 12-16 × 0.7-0.8 cm; seeds orbicular-compressed, 5 × 6-6.5 mm, wing 12-18 mm broad.

yellow trumpetbush's Behavior & Ecology

Tecoma stans is a weed of roadsides, riparian zones (banks of watercourses), open woodlands, grasslands, forest margins, waste areas, rocky places, sandy lake shores and disturbed sites in tropical and subtropical environments.

yellow trumpetbush's Reproduction

Propagation Seed - does not require pre-treatment. The seed, which germinates easily, can be sown in nursery beds or in containers. Seedlings require 3 - 4 months in the nursery, after which they can be directly planted out. Seed storage behaviour is orthodox, and seeds can be stored for long periods under ideal conditions. Regeneration by cuttings is also possible.

yellow trumpetbush's Relationship with Humans

Tecoma stans have been used for medicinal uses (the leaf infusion can be taken orally for diabetes and stomach pains; a strong leaf and root decoction is taken orally as a diuretic, to treat syphilis or for intestinal worms)

Tecoma stans provides useful shade, especially in garden, is valued as an amenity tree by virtue of its many yellow trumpet-shaped flowers; trees can be planted as a live hedge.

yellow trumpetbush habitat

yellow trumpetbush's status