Amherstia nobilis flowering

[Mangosteen]

Finally got some flowers on the A. nobilis on my property outside of Hilo. 

Any others growers?

[Tracy]

Just saw one in bloom at Bill Austin's in Kurtistown a couple of weeks ago when we visited.  I don't recall having seen one bloom in person prior to that.  My wife really liked it and was asking if we could grow one back in Leucadia.

[Hillizard]

For those in NorCal, a specimen blooms every year here: https://conservatoryofflowers.org/blog/the-pride-of-burma-amherstia-nobilis/

[mnorell]

7 hours ago, Tracy said:

Just saw one in bloom at Bill Austin's in Kurtistown a couple of weeks ago when we visited.  I don't recall having seen one bloom in person prior to that.  My wife really liked it and was asking if we could grow one back in Leucadia.

Tracy, this is one of the Leguminous 'handkerchief trees' (like Saraca, Brownea, Browneopsis, et al.) whose new leaves open up as pink-to-white, fascinatingly limp leaves, slowly changing color and stiffening up over time to a deep green. My one experience with this species in bloom was at the Lyon Arboretum in Manoa (Honolulu), O'ahu when I was living there over 30 years ago...there is (or was) one not far from the parking lot, just inside the jungle canopy. A beautiful thing with all those blooms, like so many coral-pink birds hanging in the air under the canopy of the tree. I've always assumed that its requirements were uniformly tropical temperatures, an extremely humid and regularly rainy environment, and very acid soil. It is a legendary tree I think because of its supposed difficulty in cultivation (and propagation). Because plants, when they have been obtainable, have been so very expensive (like $150-250 for a small plant), they have not been available for extensive trialing in potentially hospitable climates. However, some people in South Florida who were able to obtain them over the last few years have reported success with this species, at least in the rainy southeast Florida climate. 

One thing I can mention as a point for speculation...I became enamored of the delicate tropical Saraca genus when I was in the Keys, and I bought a tree from Jeff Searle that grew very well along our driveway, with its beautiful pink 'handkerchief' leaves...it grew to about 15' overall but was wiped out by Irma's saltwater inundation. Just for fun, when we moved back to California (near Palm Springs), I ordered a couple of these from Jeff Marcus, one a hybrid, the other a pure species...not expecting them to survive the dryness and the cold. Weirdly enough, they are both doing just fine for two or three years now. Lesson being...plants don't read books and sometimes what we expect to be delicate creatures turn out to be adaptable to some 'hostile' climates. So the answer to your wife's question would be...you'll never know until you try it! I would expect that they want a rich, acid soil perhaps enriched with black lava-rock and a lot of humus/humic acids. And perhaps rain-water, or R.O water with pH lowered somehow for irrigation. They are from Burma (Myanmar) as is Bauhinia monandra, which is a challenging grow in SoCal, if that is an indication...

In the past, I believe I've seen this species offered by Frankie's Nursery on O'ahu and by Tom Piergrossi through his Vintage Green Farms Nursery on the Big Island. The latter is an online/mail-order nursery, the former claims to ship but I was never able to get them on the phone... @Marie Nockmight have some for sale though I don't think she ships to California...but she has a lot of hooks into the Hawai'i market and may be able to point you in the right direction, if you have that 'perfect' spot and want to take the plunge!