Tecoma stans

 

Tecoma stans (trumpetflower) (tronadora)

Bignoniaceae

• A multi-stemmed shrub with shiny leaves divided into five arrow-shaped leaflets, trumpetflower showers its landscape with golden flowers much of the year. In frost-free areas, it grows into a large tree. Trumpetflower roots continue to be used medicinally in Mexico. It prefers dry, rockym or gravelly slopes below 5, 500 feet in deserts or in grasslands and woodlands canyons qhich drain into deserts. The flower has a sensitive stigma, which slams shut like a clam when touched. Trumpetflowers begin to bloom and attract large bees in late April, flowering sporadically into November or December. "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988"