Yellow Poui

The Yellow Poui is one of Jamaica’s beautiful flowering trees, but its yellow blossom lasts only one or two days. I have long puzzled over how all the Poui trees in Montego Bay synchronize their flowering. They normally flower in March or April, at the end of the usual dry season. There’s a saying that if students haven’t started studying for exams when the Yellow Pouis flower, they are cutting things too close.  This would normally hold true, but this year and last Pouis have flowered again in August and September. In the worst drought in decades, they have been leafless for months. Then after some heavy showers over the weekend, they burst into flower on Thursday, so I presume that was the trigger. The pollinators of the flowers, insects and tiny hummingbirds, feast on nectar. The fruits, long pods, grow quickly, then dry and open releasing wind-dispersed, papery-winged seeds. They spring up all over the place, but their survival rate is low. Most of the Poui trees we see are planted for decorative purposes.