The Geiger Tree is widely grown in the tropics for its showy, bright orange flowers. The flowers are funnel shaped and have a narrow tube and 6 ruffled petals. They are in rounded clusters at the ends of the twigs. It flowers throughout the year. The fruits are ovoid and white and are edible. Leaves are bright green or dark green and they contrast nicely with the orange flowers. The Geiger Tree flowers throughout the year. It is drought tolerant and salt tolerant. It is native to the coastal hammocks of the Florida Keys, the West Indies and Central America. The seeds were collected from trees in Miami and the Florida Keys. Audubon painted the Geiger Tree with the White-Crowned Pigeon. 

Growing Instructions

 

The seeds have a hard seed coat that has to be treated, or scarified, in order for water to enter the seeds so that they can sprout.

 

1. Scarify the seeds by nicking or sanding the seed coat.
2. Soak the seeds in water for several hours.
3. The seeds like moist, well-drained soil. Prepare a mixture of half potting soil and half sand, perlite or vermiculite. Put the soil in a pot. Water the mixture so that it is moist but not wet.
4. Put the seeds on the soil.
5. Cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil.
6. Water the seeds.
7. Place the pots in an area with warm temperatures in full sun or part shade. The seeds take several weeks to germinate.
8. When the seedlings are a few inches tall, they can be transplanted.