Plant of the day is: Posoqueria longiflora or Needle Flower Tree

Plant of the days is: Posoqueria longiflora or Needle Flower Tree

This plant is a tropical tree native to Mexico and Brazil.  It has some truly striking flowers that are reportedly visited by hawk moths.  The flowers are white and smell like gardenia's which are in the same family (Rubiaceae), they have very narrow tubes opening to 5 petals.  I'm not going to get into the craziness of how the flowers disperse pollen, but suffice it to say, they flowers use some cheeky maneuvers with their anthers to distribute pollen on their visiting pollinators.

So, it gets anywhere from 4' to 30'.  I've seen reports of it being a slow grower and a fast grower.  My initial observations lean towards slow to medium.  It prefers moist acidic soil with full sun to filtered light.  Hardy in zone 9, 10 and needs a minimum temp of around 50F.  I can vouch that it does not take to alkaline soils well and will begin to show some interveinal chlorosis.

You COULD grow this as a house plant likely.  You are going to need a pretty bright area though, especially for the winter.  I have a feeling it's well worth the effort with flowers that smell so great.

Other fun fact, the name is derived form the local Galibi people of French Guiana.  They call the plant Aymara-Posopheri.  The aymara is a fish that eats the fruit that falls into the water.  Fun times.

It has taken me a little longer to memorize than usual BUT hey, just look at it everyday for long enough and you'll get anything right?

Enjoy.