The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Mariosousa heterophylla
Willard's acacia (Mariosousa heterophylla) is a slender, mostly evergreen desert tree from Sonora, Mexico, with peeling white bark and long, flattened leaf stalks. It grows best in full sun with very sparing water once established.
Mariosousa heterophylla, also called the palo blanco tree (which is also applied to Ipomoea arborescens), palo liso, guinola, and Willard acacia, is a normally evergreen mimosoid plant in the genus Mariosousa native to Mexico. The Spanish common name translates into 'white stick', defining its peeling white bark. A compound called willardiine, that acts as an agonist in glutamate receptors, can be isolated from M. heterophylla.
The plant is endemic to Sonora (Sonoran Desert), Mexico. It prefers rocky bajadas, slopes and arroyos from 0 to 2,000 feet elevation. It is a popular ornamental tree in arid areas, especially in the southwestern U.S.
Mariosousa dolichostachya · Mariosousa usumacintensis · Mariosousa
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Mariosousa heterophylla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
