Plant in full sun in a warm location (south-facing slopes or sides of a building are the very best in our cool coastal climate) in well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally - once established this plant is surprisingly tolerant of infrequent or no additional irrigation over natural rainfall but it looks better when given an occasional drink. It is an evergreen tree in the tropics that can go drought deciduous and in our mild climate area will stop flowering and often go deciduous in late fall or at first frost, but in warm winters can flower through the winter, however it can freeze to hard wood when temperatures go much below freezing (28-30° F depending on duration). It is best planted in USDA zones 10 - 11 and even in these zones in California there is risk of frost damage. The roots survive at even lower temperatures such as occurred after the historic January 1949 freeze in Santa Barbara, where a tree that flowered as early as 1934 in Orpet Park (then called Hillside Park) froze to the ground but rebounded after the two nights recorded in the city down to 20 degrees F. This tree can also be grown close to the ocean with some protection from sea breezes (Zone 2) but seems to like the warmer temperatures afforded to it a bit further back from the beach and higher winds near the shore are also a problem with limbs that are a bit brittle. Minor but regular pruning may be necessary to keep it safe wind damage.

Spathodea campanulata comes from dry humid forests and savannas of sub-Saharan Africa from Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia but it is now planted worldwide. Spathodea campanulata is monotypic (the only species in its genus) and first observed in 1787 along the Gold Coast in now what is Ghana by the French naturalist Ambrose Maria Francis Joseph Palisot de Beauvois, who later described it in his Flora D'Oware et de Benin in 1805. The name comes from the Ancient Greek words 'spathe' meaning "a spathe" or "boat shaped" and 'odes' meaning "like" or "of the nature of" in reference to the large boat shaped calyx. The specific epithet is also a reference to the campanulate or "bell shaped" flowers. Besides African Tuliptree other common names include Fountain Tree, Pickari, Nandi flame and Squirt tree (because the nectar in the flower buds can be squirted out).

We also grow the more common red flowering form which we list as Spathodea campanulata that is grown from seed. This yellow form of this Spathodea was once considered incredibly rare and our first attempts to grow this form was from seed collected off yellow flowering trees on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands but these seed grown plants were not reliably yellow flowered but plant we sold from 2017 on were propagated by grafting the yellow flowering wood (the scion) to seedling rootstocks - our thanks go out to Jim Norberg of Leeward Growers for these grafted plants! There are nice plantings of this Yellow African Tuliptree as street trees in Santa Barbara on the west side of Los Olivos Street near State Street. The largest known trees in California are in San Diego County with one particularly large yellow flowering one noted in Balboa Park. 

The information displayed on this page about Spathodea campanulata 'Lutea' is based on the research we have conducted about it in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.