Bushbernie's Garden
Powderpuff
Genus: Calliandra.
Species: Calliandra haematocephala.
The Red Powder-puff, native to Bolivia, is a fast-growing, multiple trunked, low-branching, evergreen shrub that, unless pruned, can grow up to about 3 metres tall and spread to about the same extent.
The compound leaves have between five and ten pairs of glossy green leaflets. The leaves display sleep movements: at night the leaflets fold forwards, and then spread during the day. New leaves emerge a yellowing bronze colour, and turn a metallic green as they mature.
The flower buds, before they open, look like raspberries, first green, then red. The flowers are small, and mostly composed of long extravagant stamens, clustered to form spherical inflorescences. The pink to red stamens are about three to four centimetres long. Nectar-feeding birds and butterflies are frequent visitors to the flowers.
The fruit is an explosively dehiscent pod, dull brown in colour, linear-lanceolate in shape, 6-11 cm in length by 5-13 mm in width. When the fruit is ripe, the valves open elastically from apex to base along sutures. They contain 5 or 6 brown oblong seeds.
