The Flamboyant is a beautiful flower on a full blooming tree. It was said that Ariel Melchior Sr. founder of the Virgin Islands Daily News, greatly admired the flowering tree on one of his travels, that he paid school children ten cents to gather the seeds. Upon his return to the Virgin Islands, he scattered the seeds via a plane piloted and rented from his friend Jack Monsanto in the late 1940’s. Now the trees dance in the wind with the adornment of these hearty little flowers across the US Virgin Islands.