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 There are several tropical species that are sometimes referred to as handkerchief trees. This is because the new leaves of these trees develop in bunches and are pale and limp at first, looking not unlike damp pocket-handkerchief, suspended from their centres, dangling at the ends of the branches. The Gardens has quite an assortment of handkerchief trees, all of them members of the Leguminosae (bean family) and all good-looking in their own way.
Perhaps the most beautiful of flowering tropical trees, certainly attractive enough to earn the sobriquet Queen of Flowering Trees, is Amherstia nobilis. Obscure origins add to the mystique of this noble petite tree. It has only been collected from the wild a couple of times, in the forests of Burma, leading to its common name Pride of Burma. The genus is named after Lady Sarah Amherst, who collected plants in Asia in the early Nineteenth century. Not only is she commemorated in one of the most beautiful of the world’s trees, she also lends her name to Lady Amherst’s pheasant one of the most elegant birds. There are Amherstia trees planted in several places in the Gardens. Visitors can admire the large inflorescences of big red-and-pink flowers marked with yellow. The new leaves are produced in flaccid pale tassels that turn purplish before they green and open out.
 When not in flower, Amherstia looks not unlike a species of Saracca, another Asian legume genus. Saracca trees do not produce new leaves in groups, so are not proper handkerchief trees, but the new leaves of Saracca cauliflora are large, pendent, and strikingly pink. The species is better known as Saracca thaipingensis in honour of the town in Perak and is much planted in the Gardens, including the long avenue from the Main Gate. The mighty orange inflorescences are borne on the main trunk as well as among the foliage making it one of the most attractive of the Malay Peninsula’s native trees. Large purple pods are the products of successful pollination. Three other species of Saracca are also included in the Gardens’ collection, but none of these has conspicuous young leaves.
Another group of true handkerchief trees is the species of Brownea from South America. These are low spreading trees with large inflorescences of many red flowers forming big balls hanging, not unlike Chinese lanterns, beneath the foliage. The flowers are truly spectacular, but as they are rather hidden from view many people do not notice them. At present the Gardens has four species of Brownea in its collection. Superficially they are similar but can be told apart quite easily.
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