It's not a flame tree. I found some pictures of flame trees in flower on the
net & although the trunks & leaves look kind of similar, the flowers are
completely different. I might see if I can borrow the digital camera at work
tomorrow & take a picture or three, although the tree isn't presently in
flower.

--
Wanda
aka Willow
The missing and definitely not to be taken seriously under any circumstances
garden gnome
http://www.2000cn.com.au/~willow

~~faeries are able to fly because they take themselves lightly~
Chookie wrote in message
news:ehrebeniuk-B84CE0.21075716112002@news...
In article ,
"Willow" wrote:

I've been thinking of planting a tree or two similar to a couple of
trees
that grow accross the road from where I work. I've been told that
they're
Australian Native Christmas trees, however they don't look anything like
the
pictures I've seen. The trees near work are about 5 metres high,
deciduous
with red/orange flowers with a black center. They're large & are in
full-flower before the leaves begin to form. The leaves are fairly broad
&
although the tree has a fairly dense habit, it still allows some
filtered
light through. I hope that's descriptive enough.

http://www.anbg.gov.au/christmas/christmas.html

is a list of native "Christmas" plants with pictures. Your description
doesn't match any of them. It does sound a bit like the Illawarra Flame
Tree,
which is illustrated at: http://www.anbg.gov.au/stamps/stamp.686.html .
The
Illawarra Flame Tree has very distinctive black boat-shaped seed pods,
about
15cm long. Does this sound right? And where are these trees exactly?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

I don't regard myself as a fanatic. I just have handy milk dispensers.
-- Lee, misc.kids