Ipê, Part II

It's a breath taking event to look at one of these ipê trees in bloom. I compare it to looking at an orchid flower! It's so beautiful, you just can't stop looking at it. I'm only sorry that I didn't take my pictures a few hours earlier when the tree had a full load of blooms. You can see in the image that some of the flowers have fallen from the upper branches. New leaves form almost immediately thereafter. This ipê tree is located on the Municipality Hospital grounds here in Santarém. Given the size of the tree, I assume that it must be the yellow-blooming ipê of the high forest, Tabebuia serratifolia.