''Delonix'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
s in the family
Fabaceae,
subfamily Caesalpinioideae.
It contains
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s that are native to
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
and
East Africa. By far the best known species is the Royal Poinciana (''
D. regia'').
The name of the genus is derived from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words δηλος (''delos''), meaning "evident," and ονυξ (''onyx''), meaning "claw," referring to the
petals.
The common name, poinciana, comes from a former genus of the same name in which the members of the current genus ''Delonix'' were classified along with plants now placed in the genus ''
Caesalpinia
''Caesalpinia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. Historically, membership within the genus has been highly variable, with different publications including anywhere from 70 to 165 species, depending largely on the inclusion o ...
''.
Selected species
References
External links
*
*
Fabaceae genera
Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
{{Caesalpinioideae-stub