This plant may be available to buy
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Screw-Pine click pics to enlarge |
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Zone 10 This is not a pine, but a tropical tree. Best used as a free-standing specimen with plenty of room, this tree grows to 25 feet but also grows as wide. Its habit is to branch in tiers with its top in a pyramid shape
click pics to enlarge The roots are significant with many brace roots
click pics to enlarge increasing in number & size & width over time
click pics to enlarge You may have seen the screwipine's fruit/nut in elaborate floral arrangements
click pics to enlarge Also the leaves are used in arrangements used for their tropical look and long, pointed affects. We saw this variegated Screw Pine at Fairchild Tropical Gardens
click pics to enlarge What you probably have never seen is the inflorescence of the Screw Pine. The nuts are not the seeds. The nuts open into a cascade of pollen rich fiber. First here's the tree
click pics to enlarge Here are some bloom pictures:
click pics to enlarge This tree wants full sun, is not fussy for soil content and is not salt tolerant. Keep soil on the moist side and feed well, often There are three main negatives to using screw-pine in a landscape One, it's adult size of 25x25 can easily take over a home landscape. Even in commercial settings, the screw-pine must be planted 15 or more feet from any pedestrian walk, building or road Second, the leaves shed actively so they are a nuisance to collect off lawns Third, they seed easily, even into lawn grass, so new screw-pines will appear by the hundreds from the soil after flowering and need to be removed or killed Otherwise, screw-pine looks great in proper settings The one big negative is that Lethal Yellowing (the same disease that has killed so many coconut and other palm trees in Florida) also attacks and kills the Screw-Pine |
