Warszewiczia coccinea (Vahl) Klotzsch

Warszewiczia coccinea (Vahl) Klotzsch, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin
1853: 497. 1853.
Macrocnemum coccineum Vahl, Symb. 2: 38. 1791. Mussaenda coccinea Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 4: 394. 1797. Calycophyllum coccineum DC. Prodr. 4: 367. 1830.
Shrub or small tree, 4-6 meters high, the branches stout, subquadrangular, grayish or brownish, usually fulvous-pilose when young but sometimes glabrate, the internodes short; stipules narrowly triangular-oblong, 1.5-2 cm. long, acuminate or attenuate, thick, brown, strigillose outside or glabrate; petioles stout, 0.5-2.5 cm. long, sulcate above, rounded beneath, strigillose, pilosulous, or glabrate; leaf-blades oblanceolate-oblong, obovate, obovate-oblong, or broadly oval-obovate, 14-65 cm. long, 4.5-35 cm. wide, narrowed to the subobtuse to attenuate base, sometimes subabruptly acuminate, acute or abruptly short-acuminate at the apex, thin, bright-green above, sublustrous, glabrous or sparsely pilosulous along the costa, the venation plane or prominulous, scarcely paler beneath, dull, sparsely or densely strigillose, especially along the veins, sometimes densely short-pilose, the venation prominent, the costa slender, the lateral veins slender, 15-32 on each side, divaricate, nearly straight, the margins plane; inflorescence 30-40 cm. long, the peduncles stout, 1-5 cm. long, the cymes numerous, dense, fewor many-flowered, short-pedunculate, the rachis glabrous or pilose; bracts triangular, small, the bractlets minute, subulate, ciliate; hypanthium 2-2.5 mm. long, yellowishtomentulose or strigose; calyx-lobes about 1.5 mm. long, broadly oval, rounded at the apex, erect, glabrous, sometimes ciliolate, one of the lobes often expanded into a red limb, this ovaloblong to narrowly elliptic, 3.5-7 cm. long, 1-2.5 cm. wide, obtuse at the apex, borne on a petiole 1-3 cm. long, glabrous or appressed-pilose; corolla yellow or orange, 5-8 mm. long, the tube equaling or longer than the lobes, strigillose outside; filaments about equaling the corollalobes, the anthers 2-4 mm. long; capsule subglobose, 4-5 mm. long, pilosulous; seeds 1 mm. long or shorter.
Type locality: Trinidad.
Distribution: Costa Rica to Peru and Brazil; also in Trinidad.

Warszewiczia coccinea (or chaconia, wild poinsettia and pride of Trinidad and Tobago) is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is the national flower of Trinidad and Tobago because it blooms on 31 August, which coincides with the day that Trinidad and Tobago became independent from the United Kingdom.

This small, evergreen ornamental tree is remarkable for its inflorescence with bright red bracts and inconspicuous yellow petals.

The anise-odored roots are said to exhibit aphrodisiac properties.

A cultivar, the double chaconia, which has a double row of bracts, is the more widely cultivated form. This plant originates from cuttings taken from a wild plant found growing along a roadside. Since propagation from seed has not yet been successful, all double chaconias have been propagated by cuttings from this individual.