Oh YEAH!!!
I got 2 this season, after wanting one for a long time. Make sure you take lots of photos when you get blooms and show them! Mine are about 4 ft tall each. I got them from a really great grower in South FL for $10 each. I am hoping I get some blooms next season.

Bihai,

You got a good deal.

My tree which is only about 6" is from seed, from a tree growing here in Ocean Springs, a real anomaly. I'd thought that it maybe was E. bidwilli (I think that's the name) but I'm pretty much convinced that it's E. crista-galli.

The mama tree is downtown OS, and it's as tall as the house it sits next to. Tree is very mature, with a really pretty gnarly black trunk and branches, it's SO kewl. The lady whose house it is tells me that the state extension service as well as several people from various nurseries all come to see it. She told me that when she was a child, there were lots of 'cry-babies' around but almost all were bushes, and this is the only tree form she's seen. It did get knocked over from Katrina, but she stood the tree up and it seems to be doing okay, although not blooming as aggressively as before.

I'm hoping that since the stock is from a local (read hardy) tree, I'll have better luck with it than I would with something from S. Fla.

I've seen pictures of your garden and you have kewl stuff, and you seem to have a knack for keeping those extra-zonal beauties going.

sea ya
tami

thank for the compliment Tami.
There is an Erythina crista-galli here in Gainesville too that's a huge tree. It is in a private houseyard next door to my daughter's elementary school. The director of the school said that the tree has been there as long as the school (30 years!)Its so beautiful when in bloom. It is all gnarly like you said, and it almost looks like a live oak on the coast that has been blown permanently into a lopsided lean by constant wind off the ocean.

I planted one of mine in the greenhouse and am keeping the other in a container. When it gets really big and unmanageable, I am going to plant it out in the yard.

I have had an Erythina x bidwillii for 2 years. They stay shrubby. Mine has never bloomed yet. It grows well but has not bloomed. I am puzzled. The first season, it didn't because the deer came along and ate all the tips off of it...this year they have left it alone but still no flowers. I am pretty bummed. I got it from Plant Delights.