ORANGE CIRICOTE FLOWERS
AGAINST THE BLUE SKY

Our bright, blue-skied afternoons highlight a certain small, native tree blossoming now with orange-red blossoms about 2½-inches across. It's the Ciricote, CORDIA DODECANDRA, a member of the Borage Family, in which we also find Bluebells, Forget-me-nots, Comfrey and Borage itself. In the North this family is nearly always herbaceous but in the tropics it breaks out with woody species.

Ciricote's keep flowering for months at a time. During the wet season the flowers' intensely orange color erupts against a dark, green landscape. Now during the dry season Ciricote trees have lost their large, sandpapery leaves but the trees' flower clusters at the tips of scraggly branches are almost shockingly vivid against the deep, blue sky. The ones shown at the right were photographed right outside my door.

Many Ciricotes have been planted at the hacienda but out in the scrub they are not common, though once they were. One problem for the tree is that its wood is famous for holding up under wet conditions, plus the wood is pretty enough for being used in making furniture. I read that it has been placed on a list of plants in danger of disappearing from the wild.