If it wasn’t for the Gadsden Purchase, coral bean or Erythrina flabelliformis wouldn’t be found in southeastern Arizona or southwestern New Mexico and so we are in its northern most range out of Mexico. It has so much to love…amazing bright red flowers on naked branches followed by fan shape green leaves (flabelliformis!) and then the long pods that dry and dehisce and dangle to display the red seed. Seed so hard that I use a file or grinding wheel to break the seed coat so it’ll germinate. It’s in the pea family Fabaceae and the pea family rocks the desert…mesquites, palo verdes, acacias, sennas! I love that you can find this plant just above the desert floor in different biotic communities from 3,000 ft to 5,500 ft. …sometimes near oaks, sometimes near saguaros….always in hot geology…. a borderlands native that ignores borders and reminds us that the desert is beautiful.
