Halleria lucida and other cauliflorous plants
This morning I noticed that the Halleria lucida (also known as tree fuchsia, but actually unrelated to fuchsias) which I've grown from seed five year ago is flowering for the first time. Yay!
It's native to South Africa but obviously doesn't mind a bit of cold.
To be honest, I was actually hoping the flowers would be a bit darker orange, but I'm mainly growing it because it is supposedly cauliflorous (flowers directly from the stems/trunk) - something that's very unusual in temperate plants but quite common in tropical plants, so can give quite a tropical feel to a temperate garden (or so I'm hoping) and can look quite spectacular when the flowers are sprouting from old, otherwise bare wood. The only other cauliflorous plants I can think of that can be grown in temperate climates are Cercis spp. (which I also grow and are spectacular in the spring).
Does anyone know of any others?