2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Nature did not stint, creating plants of the legume genus. Their versatility is amazing: it is food for people and animals; healer for man and soil; ornamental plants that give beauty and coolness on a hot afternoon to humans and less hardy plants. The list can be continued for a long time. Today we will admire one of the representatives of the glorious family with the sonorous name "Erythrina"
Rod Erythrin
Plants of the genus
Erythrin (Erythrina) can be herbaceous, like the usual garden bean (or Russian, or ordinary …), but more often these are shrubs or deciduous trees growing from a ten-story building.
Thorny shoots are covered with broad leaves, folded from three leaves. They form a dense crown, in the shade of which other plants, such as coffee trees, hide, in need of protection from the scorching rays of the sun.
Although the culprit of the genus name is the Greek word meaning "red" in translation, in which botanists reflected the color of the plant's moth flowers, nature turned out to be more inventive than man in this, giving flowers other colors of the rainbow. There are species that adorn their branches with white, yellow, orange, salmon, and green flowers. They gather in large cluster inflorescences, which appear in the world in late spring - early summer.
Pollinated inflorescences turn into clusters of long, usually intensely colored, legume pods, inside which bright red seeds (less often black, brown) are hidden. For the external similarity of Erythrin seeds with corals, the plant was given another name -
Coral tree
Varieties
* Erythrine coral tree (Erythrina corallodendron) - it is the red seeds of this species that resemble corals, for which the tree was given such a sonorous name. Spiny shoots rise to a height of 6 meters above the ground, forming a dense crown of complex leaves, consisting of three ovoid leaves, the sharp tips of which are directed towards the sun. The end of spring - the beginning of summer, the tree meets with scarlet flowers, forming decorative clusters-inflorescences.
* Erythrina cockscomb (Erythrina crista galli) - bright crimson flowers that appear at the ends of the shoots during June-July, similar to the perky-warlike cockscombs against the background of gray-green leathery oval leaves. Shrub species up to 2, 5 m high. Grassy growth every year captures more and more space, creating thickets, if you do not look after the plant. The rough blackish trunk of the shrub is decorative, sometimes intricately twisted.
* Erythrina Sikesa (Erythrina x sykesii) is a hybrid species that grows up to 3 meters in height. Differs in branches turned towards the heavens. The inflorescences-brushes of red-orange flowers are like magic lanterns against the background of green leaves with a blue tint.
Growing
Erythrina is a child of the warm tropics. However, they manage to grow Erythrina cockscomb outdoors in temperate (and even cold) climates, mulching the base of the plant with peat, straw or leaves for the period of cold weather. But, it is safer to plant it in a tub in order to bring it into the room for the period of frost.
Erythrina loves the open sun, absorbing all its heat, covering plants that are afraid of direct sunlight with a dense crown. Therefore, it is used to create shadow barriers.
The plant does not impose special requirements on soils, although it will give preference to loose, fertile, rich in humus. I will be grateful for combining watering with mineral fertilizing, carried out a couple of times a month. Watering in the summer is regular and abundant, in the winter (pot crops) - to prevent the soil from drying out.
Reproduction
In addition to natural growth, it can be propagated by sowing seeds, or by spring cuttings.
Enemies
Fungal diseases and nematodes.
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