Red Bird of Paradise” or “Pride of Barbados

   

This sub-tropical shrub is used extensively in low-elevation zones for its extravagant, showy flowers and its incredible heat tolerance. Red Bird of Paradise is a rounded, open shrub with light green, feathery, compound leaves. The inch-wide flowers have slightly ruffled petals that are a deep orange color with varying amounts of yellow. Some forms of Caesalpinia pulcherrima have pure yellow flowers. Although this shrub loses most of its leaves in the winter, it recovers quickly.