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Powder puff plant
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Calliandra makes for a fine decorative plant with its unusual appearance
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The plant needs bright light but should be shaded from direct sunlight.
CALLED POWDER puff tree for its appearance, Calliandra is a genus that has about 200 species of evergreen perennials, shrubs and small trees from West Africa, Madagascar, India and tropical and sub-tropical North and South America.
Found mainly in dry sites of forest margins, they are valued for their attractive pinnate leaves and spherical heads of many small bell or funnel-shaped flowers, which have hundreds of colourful fine stamens (1.5 cm across) produced from leaf axils. The flowers resemble powder puffs.
Calliandra haematocephala is slow growing, many branched small tree or spreading shrub with bipinnate leaves about 30 cm long. Each leaf comprises five to 10 pairs of oblong, elliptic, glossy, dark green leaflets. Flower heads are axillary, spherical about seven cm across — usually prominent, deep red, with hundreds of fine deep red (pink or white) stamens.
Calliandra is grown usually in shrub borders in loam-based compost in full light shaded from the hot sun. Water freely and apply a balanced liquid fertiliser every month. Water sparingly in winter. If planning to grow outdoors, grow in well-drained, fertile soil in full sun. Prune after flowering. Calliandra tweedil bears green or white flowers with red stamens.
Calliandra eriophylla bears axillary, spherical heads three cm across of pale to deep pink flowers with reddish purple or sometimes white stamens.
Propagation is by semi-ripe cuttings or by seeds. The plant needs restrictive pruning.
CHITRA RADHAKRISHNAN
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