It is hard to determine specifics. After all, they spend quite a lot of time bare. If you think the scaffolding of every tree has its own beauty, that is one reason. The bark, a smooth grey/green.
Plumerias are peculiar. Unlike elms and oaks the crown is not regular. It seems that every individual is different from the next. Sometimes they bloom with the leaves on, or not. It is noticeable when you walk from one side of the town to the other.
The fragrance of the whites is the most intense, yellow is peach like, pink is subtle. In different sites, some Plumerias are in full bloom, with just leaves or bare. Whites dominate the scenery.
In the San Juan metro zone, their availability and popularity has increased in the last five years. Yet, I am certain too many people are not fond of trees looking like it is winter in Vermont, during our cool/wet season.
Resistant to diseases, drought, heat, saline breeze and sandy soils, the foliage is almost always in company of rust or those handsome black/green, glutton caterpillars dropping by twice a year, munching non stop until falling dormant to become huge moths.
My white was collected in Ashford avenue in Condado. There were lots of branches thrown on the sidewalk. A couple of weeks later, the yellow was kidnapped from El Hamburguer, a fast greasy food joint no longer with us, some blocks down.
The pink was a birthday present in a big pot. This variety is unique. It is the only one I have ever seen with seed pods. Two off springs have survived. One is in a pot, one is not.
The yellow/pink flowered Plumeria has a Catholic background. I confiscated a couple of stems from the overgrown branches on top of the concrete fence surrounding the San Juan Archbishop's office, a few steps from the Baldorioty de Castro avenue.
Let the record show there is one variety I consider ugly. Plumeria pudica. Their whites flowers are the most handsome, but this tree grows straight, not of my liking. For that reason there is none in the collection.
If I had much more room I would have planted them differently. There are two in pots in the north, one in the east, the rest live happily grounded in the south garden.
There is an endemic one from Puerto Rico. I tried to propagate a cut stem from Guanica City, my kind of town, thirty inches of rain a year, without luck. The difference between this kind and the others is in the narrow leaves and thinner trunk/branches.
That is that. If you live in dry, hot, with very little rain climate, I would recommend it.
That is that
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