Coastal Coral Tree (E. caffra) is the official city tree of Los Angeles – it's basically Erythrina, a genus of tropical and subtropical flowering trees in the Family Fabaceae. These are often called "Flame Trees" even if they look like coral. Or you can think of a male chicken's wattles, or its leg spurs, so in Spanish you get bucaré, frejolillo or porotillo as names for this thing. In Hinduism, the mandara tree in Indra's garden in Svarga seems to be Erythrina stricta, and in Tibetan Buddhism, the man da ra ba growing in Sukhavati is an Indian Coral Tree (E. variegata). It does get around.
One is that of the youth of Greek mythology called Narcissus, who, in at least one of many variations of the tale, became so obsessed with his own reflection as he kneeled and gazed into a pool of water that he fell into the water and drowned. In some variations, he died of starvation and thirst from just sitting by the edge of the pool until he gave out, gazing at his reflection until he died. In both versions, the Narcissus plant first sprang from where he died. The other derivation is that the plant is named after its narcotic properties (narkao, to numb in Greek).
We report. You decide.
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Technical Note:
These photographs were taken with a Nikon D200 – the lenses used were AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto. The high-resolution photography here was modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.
