Yellow and Red

Caesalpinia gilliesii is a shrub in the legume family. It is commonly known as bird of paradise, but it is not related to the bird of paradise genus Strelitzia. It grows to 3–4 m tall. The leaves are bipinnate, 10–15 cm long, bearing 3-10 pairs of pinnae, each with 6-10 pairs of leaflets 5–6 mm long and 2–4 mm broad. The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow petals with 10 long conspicuous red stamens.

It is a striking ornamental plant native to tropical America, mainly Argentina and Uruguay. It is naturalised in Texas, and fairly common in the rest of the southwestern United States, where it is known as bird of paradise bush, desert bird of paradise, yellow bird of paradise, and barba de chivo.

Although it is a tropical plant adapted to dry climate, it also thrives in the climate of Avsa and neighbouring islands in the south of Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey, where it is commonly known as Paşabıyığı (Pasabiyigi), Cennetkuşu ağacı (Cennetkusu agaci), which in Turkish means "bird of paradise tree," and Bodurakasya, which means "dwarf acacia".

Medicine men of peoples indigenous to the Amazon Rainforest used this plant and the similar Caesalpinia pulcherrima, which they called ayoowiri, for curing fever, sores, and cough. Four grams from the root is also said to induce abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. However, it must be noted that the seeds and the green seed pods of this plant are toxic, provoking severe vomiting and other abdominal symptoms.

Caesalpinia is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. Membership within the genus is controversial, with different publications including anywhere from 70 to 165 species, depending largely on the inclusion or exclusion of species alternately listed under genera such as Hoffmannseggia. It contains tropical or subtropical woody plants. The generic name honors the botanist, physician and philosopher Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603).

The name Caesalpinaceae at family level, or Caesalpinioideae at the level of subfamily, is based on this generic name.

The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species. The largest genera are Astragalus (over 2,400 species), Acacia (over 950 species), Indigofera (around 700 species), Crotalaria (around 700 species), and Mimosa (around 500 species).

Plants of this family are found throughout the world, growing in many different environments and climates. A number are important agricultural plants, including: Glycine max (soybean), Phaseolus (beans), Pisum sativum (pea), Cicer arietinum (chickpeas), Medicago sativa (alfalfa), Arachis hypogaea (peanut), Ceratonia siliqua (carob), and Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice), which are among the best known members of Fabaceae.

A number of species are also weedy pests in different parts of the world, including: Cytisus scoparius (broom), Ulex europaeus (gorse), Pueraria lobata (kudzu), and a number of Lupinus species.