Tabebuia pentaphylla or Tabebuia rosea or ??

[fastfeat]

I saw these yesterday in the 3900 blk of SW 8th St (Calle Ocho) in
Miami. I had passed these before and assumed they were Markhamia
lutea based on the size and structure of the trees. A closer look
(easier when one stops the truck--not a problem in 4pm traffic...)
revealed that they weren't.

The leaf margins are entire (smooth). Some were glossy, others dull.
Twigs are quite thick. Flowers were very light, though the main bloom
season is probably in the Spring. Only one pod was visible on one of
the four trees.

Any ideas on the ID?

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z93/fastfeat/PHTO0021-1.jpg

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z93/fastfeat/PHTO0020-1.jpg

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http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z93/fastfeat/PHTO0022-4.jpg

[Kit]

What I was read (Gentry, from a Menninger Symposium presentation) is
that T. pentaphylla was once considered a subspecies that retains the
toothed margins through life. He said that it is just a variation at
most of T. rosea. The leaves of T. rosea are more or less toothed when
young. There is no other significant difference. Of course with open
pollination there can be many hybrids. Any large, erect tree with 5
leaflets with the 2 outer ones considerably shorter than the three
middle ones and it's probably T. rosea. Rosea flowers are also quite
variable in color, ranging from deep pink to white. In my experience
they are slightly larger and have a longer tube than the other
species. But they tend to be up so high that you can only see what
fall on the ground. T. rosea is a significant species cut in Latin
American for the beautiful hard wood. It's numbers have been greatly
reduced - as has T. impetiginosa which was obliterated in parts of its
range for its so-called medicinal properties (to treat syphilis).

[fastfeat]

Thanks Kit--

Rob Bobson said this is what he's been calling T. rosea as well, but
said Harri Lorenzi calls it T. pallida in Brazil.

[Kit]

Don't want to say anything contrary to Harri who I admire (he is no
taxonomist however - an agronomist). Rob may have misunderstood or
something else is amiss. T. pallida is a small Antillian species that
is monophylate (or whatever the word meaning reduced to 1 leaflet). T
heterophylla is still incorrectly referred to as T. pallida.

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[Mark4]

Can anyone comment on the hardiness of T. rosea?
Tabebuia rosea is part of the "lapacho" or "hardwood" group of
Tabebuia. This group tends to have a good amount of frost tolerance. I
think I saw one at Leu Gardens in Orlando, but most of what I see in
Central Florida is T. impetiginosa and T. chrysotricha. I remember
seeing a large T. serratifolia at Cypress Gardens. There is a large
tab in my neighborhood I have yet to ID. For now, I just refer to it
as the "raspberry tab"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/caesalpinia/Tabebuia_rasberry.jpg

[fastfeat]

Kit--

That's what I thought as well.

Mark--

My only experience with what I thought might be T. rosea was with
some nursery trees (mixed in with a batch of the smaller, thinner-
leafed T. impetiginosa) in CA that had much bigger, smooth-margined
leaves not unlike the ones I just shot. We shifted these from 15's to
24's in the Fall and they got lightly frosted, maybe to 30F at lowest.
Didn't miss a beat. Don't know where they ended up or if they survived
last Winter's record West Coast freeze.

My favorite in the Orlando area is T. umbellata, many big ones in
Winter Park; I like it better in FL than T. chrysotricha.

BTW--That "raspberry" tree is gorgeous--sorry I don't know its ID.

[Kit]

I agree about T chrysotryca. I have one and it is a poor bloomer at
least on my property. It is as large as the roof ridge and only throws
a couple clusters of blooms a year. I cut it way back this year.

There is an umbellata at the Kampong and I agree there that it does
not look particularly happy. Seems there are lots of Tabs that often
do well further north - including impetiginosa. Here it seems to
depend on the year. Maybe these trees were brought from cerra regions
(seasonally dry hilly) in southern Brazil.

BTW, The correct word for T. pallida is unifoliolate. A compound leaf
reduced to one leaflet.

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[fastfeat]

There is at least one other unifoliolate species that I saw at Mathis
BG at UCLA awhile back as well, though its name escapes me now. It was
attractive even if it never bloomed.

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