''Tabebuia aurea'' is a species of ''

Tabebuia ''Tabebuia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae.Eberhard Fischer, Inge Theisen, and Lúcia G. Lohmann. 2004. "Bignoniaceae". pages 9-38. In: Klaus Kubitzki (editor) and Joachim W. Kadereit (volume editor). ''The Families ...

'' native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

in Suriname,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, eastern Bolivia,

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

, and northern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. The common English name Caribbean trumpet tree is misleading, as it is not native to the Caribbean. It is also known as the silver trumpet tree,Kepler, Angela Kay (1990)
''Trees of Hawai'i'', p. 7
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. . and tree of gold.

Description

It is a small

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

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 ...

growing to 8 m tall. The leaves are palmately compound, with five or seven leaflets, each leaflet 6–18 cm long, green with silvery scales both above and below. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are bright yellow, up to 6.5 cm diameter, produced several together in a loose panicle. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

is a slender 10 cm long capsule.Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan . ;Cultivation It is a popular ornamental tree in subtropical and tropical regions, grown for its spectacular flower display on leafless shoots at the end of the dry season.

Ecology

This species presence in riparian areas of the Caatinga of northeastern Brazil is a crucial resource for Spix's macaw (''Cyanopsitta spixii''), which is extinct in the wild with fewer than 100 birds remaining in captivity. Any future reintroduction would have to provide sufficient ''T. aurea'' for nesting and other purposes - while the tree is not considered threatened on a global scale, locally it has declined due to unsustainable use for timber and some other factors.

Description

Ecology

References

Further reading