Yellow Caballero, Dwarf Poinciana

This plant is a favorite hangout of birds and many insects - yellow grass butterflies, amata wasp moths, green grasshoppers eating at its leaves, stink bugs, ants, ladybirds, carpenter bees, tiny wasps, fruit/flower chafers eating at its pods - just to name a few of what I've spotted.

Caesalpinia pulcherrima is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to the tropics and subtropics of the Americas. It is an erect, smooth shrub or small tree, 1.5 to 5 meters high. Branches are armed with a few scattered spines. The leaves are bipinnate, 20-40 cm long, bearing 3-10 pairs of pinnae, each with 6-10 pairs of leaflets 15-25 mm long and 10-15 mm broad. The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow, orange or red petals. The fruit is a pod 6-12 cm long and 1.5 cm wide. Pod is nearly straight, flat, smooth, containing 6 to 8 seeds.