''Tecoma stans'' is a species of

flowering 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 mechanism ...

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

in the

trumpet vine ''Campsis,'' commonly known as trumpet creeper or trumpet vine, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to woodlands in China and North America. It consists of two species, both of which are vigorous deciduous perennial ...

family,

Bignoniaceae Bignoniaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales commonly known as the bignonias or trumpetvines.Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. ''Flowering Plant Families of the World''. Firefly Books: ...

, that is native to the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

. Common names include yellow trumpetbush, yellow bells, yellow elder, ginger-thomas. ''Tecoma stans'' is the official flower of the

United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

and the

floral emblem In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. Different processes have been used to ...

The Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

Description

semi-evergreen Semi-deciduous or semi-evergreen is a botanical term which refers to plants that lose their foliage for a very short period, when old leaves fall off and new foliage growth is starting. This phenomenon occurs in tropical and sub-tropical woody spec ...

shrub that can grow to a small tree, it features sharply toothed, opposite green leaves that are

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...

unpaired, with 3 to 13 serrate, 8 to 10 cm long leaflets. The leaflets,

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

on both sides, have an elliptical

lanceolate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

blade 2–10 cm long and 1–4 cm wide, with a long acuminate apex and a wedge-shaped base. The margin is finely toothed It reaches heights of 6 to 9 meters. The large, showy, golden yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers are in clusters at the branch ends, are bell-shaped-funnel-shaped, five-lobed (with weakly two-lipped), often reddish-veined in the throat and 3.5 to 8.5 cm long. Flowering takes place all year round. The fruits arise from two

carpel Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

s and are up to 25 cm long, narrow capsules. The flowers attract bees,

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

, and

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...

s. The plant produces pods containing yellow

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

s with papery wings. They release many seeds with membranous wings when they open. Tecoma stans reproduces sexually (by

anemochory In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, ...

) or asexually.

Habitat

Tecoma stans is native to the

. It extends from the

southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

through Mexico,

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, and the

Antilles The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...

to northern Venezuela, and through the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

mountain range to northern Argentina. It was introduced in

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Yellow trumpetbush is a

ruderal species A ruderal species is a plant species that is first to colonize disturbed lands. The disturbance may be natural for example, wildfires or avalanchesor the consequences of human activities, such as construction ( of roads, of buildings, mining, et ...

, readily colonizing disturbed, rocky,

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

y, and cleared land and occasionally becoming an

invasive weed An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

. It thrives in a wide variety of ecosystems, from high altitude

temperate forest A temperate forest is a forest found between the tropical and boreal regions, located in the temperate zone. It is the second largest biome on our planet, covering 25% of the world's forest area, only behind the boreal forest, which covers abou ...

s and tropical deciduous and evergreen forests, to

xerophilous A xerophile () is an extremophilic organism that can grow and reproduce in conditions with a low availability of water, also known as water activity. Water activity (aw) is measured as the humidity above a substance relative to the humidity above p ...

scrub and the intertropical

littoral The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...

. It quickly colonizes disturbed, rocky, sandy, and cleared fields. The species prefers dry and sunny regions of the coast.

Cultivation

Esperanza is drought-tolerant and grows well in warm climates. It is an attractive plant that is cultivated as an ornamental. They are grown in many parts of the world for their beautiful flowering, to adorn streets and gardens. It can be easily propagated by stem cuttings.

Uses

The wood is used in rustic architecture like bahareque, for the construction of furniture and canoes, or as

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellets or chips. Firewood can ...

or charcoal. It is a

medicinal plant Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including Plant defense against her ...

used against

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

and against diseases of the

digestive system The human digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder). Digestion involves the breakdown of food into smaller and smaller compone ...

, among other uses. The plant is desirable

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food g ...

when it grows in fields grazed by

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

. The other name of this plant is Stenolobium Stans, it is also called piliya in urdu. It is a very potent anti-venom against cobra venom, used by Pakistani old medicine. It is proved to be better than anti-sera, the paste of this plant's leaves are applied topically on the cobra bite. Its bio-chemicals bind with the cobra venom enzymes thus effectively inhibiting the venom.

Invasiveness

It has invasive potential and occasionally becomes a weed. The species is considered invasive in Africa (especially South Africa), South America, Asia, Australia and the

Pacific Islands Collectively called the Pacific Islands, the islands in the Pacific Ocean are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of se ...

. It now presents a significant danger for biodiversity. It competes with local species and can form thick, almost monospecific

thicket A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in the ...

Gallery

File:(Tecoma_stans)_yellow_bell_flowers_at_Tenneti_Park_02.JPG, Scrubby bush File:Pollen grain of yellow elder.jpg, Pollen grain of yellow elder File:Starr_071024-0368_Tecoma_stans.jpg, Fruit File:Tecoma stans 22zz.jpg, Branching tree File:Tecoma Stans (Yellow Elder) (28894234765).jpg, Large shrub File:Tecoma stans in IIT-Delhi.jpg, Large tree flowering File:Tecoma stans by Prahlad balaji 1.jpg, As a garden plant File:Tecoma stans by Prahlad balaji 2.jpg, Front yard plant Tecoma Stans (Yellow Elder) (28609690300).jpg, Tree with fruit Tecoma stans (yellow bell flower) 30.jpg, As a

street tree Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and ...

File:黃鐘花 Tecoma stans 20221026172228 01.jpg, Plant by the road

References

External links

USDA Plants ProfileUS Forest Service article (pdf)FloriData
{{Taxonbar, from=Q119954

stans Stans () is the capital of the canton of Nidwalden (Nidwald) in Switzerland. The official language of Stans is German (spoken there in the variety of Swiss Standard German), but the main language is the local variant of Alemannic Swiss German. ...

National symbols of the Bahamas Flora of North America Flora of South America Garden plants of Central America