Warszewiczia coccinea bears clusters of orange tubular flowers with projecting stamens beside red sepals and a small hovering black insect

Warszewiczia coccinea

Native to the southeastern Caribbean and from southern Nicaragua to tropical South America, this tree belongs to the coffee family and can reach about 50 feet tall. It grows in moist forest and has large, opposite, oblong leaves. Long flower spikes carry dense clusters of fragrant yellow-orange flowers. The conspicuous scarlet, leaf-like structures are enlarged sepals, usually one on a flower within each cluster. Small capsules split open to release numerous tiny seeds. It is the national flower of Trinidad and Tobago. Photographed in Pereira and the department of Meta, Colombia.

Share relevant knowledge

Warszewiczia coccinea bears orange flower clusters and broad scarlet leaf-like sepals along a diagonal green flower stalk

Warszewiczia coccinea bears rows of hanging red leaf-like sepals beneath two horizontal stalks with dark spent flower clusters

Warszewiczia coccinea has bright red floral bracts surrounding branching orange flowers

Warszewiczia coccinea has hanging red floral bracts throughout a leafy tree crown

Red Warszewiczia coccinea David sepals cluster densely along an arching inflorescence

Red Warszewiczia coccinea sepals hang beneath a long inflorescence of small orange flowers

Pink-red Warszewiczia coccinea sepals hang from slender stalks beside tiny orange flowers