Caesalpinia gilliesii (Yellow Bird of Paradise)

Caesalpinia gilliesii (Yellow Bird of Paradise)

It was our last day in Albuquerque and we were sad to be leaving. I took a few pictures of Bert and Jane’s front yard while the others visited. Robert has done a nice job of xeriscaping the front yard and has three things that I photographed and identified. First, there are small, yellow chocolate flowers (Berlandiera lyrata), a member of the Compositae (or Asteraceae) family. There is also a red yucca, or more properly redflower false yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora, which is quite nice and actually seems to be quite hardy and might be worth finding for our yard, possibly in a container. Finally, there is the plant pictured here, the yellow bird of paradise (Caesalpinia gilliesii), which is a legume (family Fabaceae), not anything like the regular bird of paradise, which are in teh genus Strelitzia. It’s quite pretty, anyway.