VietNamNet Bridge – Dr. Ha Ngoc Mai has successfully multiplied the only white flamboyant tree in Vietnam using the sowing method.

Dr. Ha Ngoc Mai and her white flamboyant tree.

Dr. Mai, the owner of this special tree, has multiplied 100 saplings from seeds. However, she could not be sure whether all of them would blossom white flowers because there are several violet flamboyant trees near the white flamboyant trees and cross-pollination could occur.

The scientist planned to multiply white flamboyant trees this year by grafting technique.

Dr. Mai brought this tree to Vietnam in 1998 from Sydney, Australia. At that time, an Asian worker at a nursery in Sydney introduced Mai to a violet flamboyant grafted with a mutated white flamboyant tree. The price for this violet-white tree was $25.

“Returning to Vietnam, I brought this tree to Da Lat to grow, but I was not sure whether it would blossom with white flowers,” Dr. Mai recalled.

Three years later, the tree began blossoming bunches of white flowers.

“At that time I believed that the tree I bought was a white flamboyant tree because the mutation process is unpredictable. The mutation can happen to the entire tree or only several branches,” she added.

The first bunches of white flamboyant yielded several fruits and Dr. Mai cultivated over 50 seedlings from these fruits. However, they produced violet flowers, not white.

The sole white flamboyant tree in Da Lat:

The tree blossoms in late March and early April. This is the second consecutive

year the tree has blossomed since it was brought to Da Lat 13 years ago.

White flamboyant seeds.

A white flamboyant sapling.

PV