Cercidium floridum

Identification

Gallery

Description

Cercidium floridum Palo Verde, is a small deciduous tree that can rarely get to 30', yellow flowers appear in Mar.-May to liven up green bark. The Palo Verde is bare most of the year, providing nesting habitat for the birds, and wispy cover for people. Native to the deserts of California and Arizona, Palo Verde grows in the desert hills up to abut 4000 foot in elevation. This little tree needs full sun, is very drought tolerant (after a year or so), needs good drainage (if rainfall is higher than 10 inches needs perfect drainage, water should drain from a shovel hole in less than a minute) and no summer water. Cold hardy to somewhere about 10 degrees F., but as a desert 10F. In sustained cold, it will not tolerate freezing for longer than a few hours. We've had some killed in containers at 15 degrees F., others tolerant to below 10 degrees F. Short bursts of dry cold its ok, long wet cold it not.
This species has the funny trait of forming water-repellent soils under it. By not allowing the water to stay under it and shedding the water out to its drip line it can out compete even the annuals. That is why you find few plants under Cercidium, mostly only the ones that are mycorrhizally linked to the Cercidium. Desert wash plants of the Creosote woodland.
We planted one in the Oil Museum at Taft in 1981, by 1998 it had grown into stunning 25 foot specimen with a main trunk and beautiful form. Remove all the stress of the desert, do not water after first year, and these can become wonderful small trees.
Seeds may be ground into edible meal, 'edible' applies if you're staving and do not mind intestinal distress.