Palo Joso
Pseudalbizzia sinaloensis
Family: Fabaceae
CHARACTERISTICS
Very large evergreen tree growing to 60’ tall with a 30’ canopy. Cream-colored fuzzy flowers in spring followed by legume pods. This plant is not in the trade yet.
LANDSCAPE USE
Very large specimen tree for warmer parts of our region.
GROWING CONDITIONS
This tree still needs to be tested for more information.
AN EXPLANAITION OF TERMS USED
SUN full to part sun
WATER moderate to low
SOIL not picky, but well-drained
HARDINESS there is a plant at the UA Campus that has never shown frost damage. It is assumed it can take some minor frost, temperatures down into the mid 20s °F.
BASIN high zone
CONTAINER does moderately well in containers but will not attain full size
NUTRITION low
MAINTENANCE very little
Photo by Hernández Ramos María Elana, iNaturalist
Pseudoalbizia sinaloensis at the University of Arizona Campus Arboretum where you can visit some of the only plants known in cultivation in the United States.
ECOLOGY
Nectar rich flowers.
ETHNOBOTANY
The bark has been used as a source for tanning leather.
NATURAL DISTRIBUTION
Native to gravelly washes on the southern end of the Sonoran Desert in Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California.
TAXONOMY AND NAME
This plant is in the Fabaceae, the legume family. There are 138 accepted species in the genus Albizia. The genus is pantropical, occurring in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, America and Australia, but mostly in the Old World tropics.
This species is formerly known as Albizia sinaloensis.
The old genus is named after the Italian nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi, who introduced another species (the pink Persian silk tree, Albizia julibrissin, to Europe in the mid-18th century. The new genus, Pseudalbizzia, means kinda like Albizia. The species name, sinaloensis, refers to its common occurrence in Sinaloa, Mexico.
Photo of the seedbods by Hernández Ramos María Elana, iNaturalist
Leaves and flowers of Pseudoalbizia sinaloensis. Photo: S.A. Meyer, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.