Desert Museum Palo Verde
Parkinsonia hybrid
Family: Fabaceae
CHARACTERISTICS
Medium tree to 30’. Drought and cold deciduous, photosynthesizing trunk. Blooms in the late spring with masses of large yellow flowers. This hybrid is three way cross between Parkinsonia microphylla, P. florida, and P. aculeata.
This tree blows over a lot in Arizona landscape and is not long-lived: the shorter lifespan comes from its Mexican palo verde parentage. The blowing over is mostly caused by very bad pruning techniques so often displayed on this plant which is often used in commercial and public planting. We don’t sell this species, but it is mass-produced and readily available in the trade. It was bred for larger flowers and more upright growth when young, but the unintended consequences of the hybrid is that they are weak against our monsoon storms and short-lived.
LANDSCAPE USE
Medium sized shade tree.
Photo by Mountain States Wholesale Nursery
GROWING CONDITIONS
AN EXPLANAITION OF TERMS USED
SUN full sun
WATER moderate to low,
SOIL not picky, but well-drained
HARDINESS hardy to about 15°F
BASIN high zone
CONTAINER does moderately well in containers but will not attain full size
NUTRITION low
MAINTENANCE very little
ECOLOGY
Though this is a hybrid tree, it still has flowers that provide nectar for insects. This is complicated three-way hybrid between P. microphylla, P. florida and P. aculeata. Palo verdes are the favorite host for the larvae (grub worm) of the palo verde beetle (Derobrachus hovorei). Though they are blamed for the demise of palo verdes, these beetles mostly eat dead wood and these species have evolved together for thousands of years. Desert mistletoe is also hosted on palo verdes and gets blamed for killing them. Usually, the real demise of blue palo verdes is the dropping water table caused by humans.
NATURAL DISTRIBUTION
This tree is a human-made hybrid and does not occur in nature.