Coral Bean

Have you noticed the striking spikes of scarlet flowers of the coral bean around town?  Hummingbirds and butterflies nectar on these showy flowers.

Coral bean (Erythrina herbacea) grows among the saw palmettos on the back side of our beach dunes, in our pine flatwoods, in sunny interstices in our hammocks, and even in disturbed places.  This drought tolerant plant has distinctive and attractive wedge-shaped leaves borne in 3's.   In full sun with protection from salt, this plant will grow into a small, often multi-trunked, tree in Indian River County and southward.  Further north, it dies back to the ground during freezing temperatures and quickly re-grows to be a sprawling shrub.  Small thorns adorn its stems so it can be used in the landscape to deter human traffic or to create a thicket in which birds can hide from predators.

The flower spikes give rise to pods that ripen from green to brown and then split length-wise to expose the coral colored seeds from which the common name derives.  The seeds of this tropical plant are poisonous and reportedly used to poison rats in Mexico.

Cherokee bean is another common name for this plant, which is a member of the pea or bean (Fabaceae) family.

Text & photo by Janice Broda.