This beautiful Caribbean tree is Pink Cedar, Tabebuia heterophylla. It is also known as Pink Poui, Pink Trumpet Tree, White Cedar and Roble Blanco. Despite the name “cedar,” it is not a true cedar. It belongs to the trumpet-vine family, Bignoniaceae, along with Ginger Thomas, Calabash and Nile Tulip.

The species is native throughout much of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and is a characteristic tree of both dry and moist tropical woodland.

Pink Cedar usually grows as a small to medium-sized tree with a straight trunk and a rounded or somewhat irregular crown. Mature trees can provide useful shade, but the crown often remains open enough for light to pass through.

The leaves are compound and shaped somewhat like an open hand. Each leaf may have one, three or five leaflets, and that variation is reflected in the name heterophylla, meaning “different-leaved.”

The tree may lose much of its foliage during a pronounced dry season. Fresh leaves and flowers often appear as conditions begin to change, and flowering can be especially dramatic when the crown is still partly bare.

The blossoms are large and trumpet-shaped, usually pale pink, lavender-pink or nearly white, with a deeper-colored throat. They appear in clusters near the ends of the branches.

When a tree flowers heavily, the crown may seem covered in pink before many new leaves have emerged. Fallen blossoms can also form a soft carpet beneath the tree.

Bees, hummingbirds and other visitors are attracted to the flowers and help carry pollen between them.

After flowering, Pink Cedar produces long, narrow seed capsules. These begin green and become brown as they mature. Although they may resemble bean pods, they are capsules rather than true legumes.

When the capsules dry, they split lengthwise and release numerous flat seeds. Each seed has broad, papery wings that allow it to spin or glide away on the wind.

The bark is pale gray or brown and becomes more furrowed as the tree ages. Its wood is strong, durable and relatively easy to work and has traditionally been used for furniture, construction, boats, posts and other practical purposes.

Pink Cedar is well adapted to Caribbean conditions. It can tolerate heat, seasonal drought, wind and rocky or limestone soils, although it also grows in moister forests.

It is sometimes confused with other pink-flowering Tabebuia species. One useful clue is the variable number of leaflets, together with the pale pink trumpet flowers and long, slender seed capsules.

Pink Cedar is therefore valuable both as a native woodland tree and as an ornamental. For much of the year, it may appear modest and quietly attractive. When it flowers, however, it can transform almost overnight into one of the loveliest trees in the Caribbean landscape.

When presenting it to a group, the best feature to emphasize is the seasonal transformation: a partly leafless crown suddenly filled with clusters of soft pink trumpets.