Fire Bush

floribundum: with abundant flowers

Shrub or small tree to 6 m. Inflorescence long, 6 - 22 cm, with, at the base, a pair of characteristic long-petiolate, leaf-like elliptic-lanceolate bracts, 3.5 - 10 cm long. Stipules often 2-fid. Leaves: lamina 5 - 18 × 2 - 11.5 cm, elliptic to obovate; with venation drying finely reticulate beneath; glabrous above and beneath except for the domatia but, in some forms, hairy to even tomentose beneath; apex shortly acuminate; domatia present. Inflorescence a dense terminal spike. Corolla reddish-brown; tube 4-7 mm; lobes 0.8 mm. Capsule 1 - 1.5 cm long, brown with pale lenticels. Seeds 0.7 - 1 cm, winged.

Common

Widespread throughout tropical Africa from Guinea to Ethiopia and south to Zimbabwe.