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Pachypodium lealii
Pachypodium lealii, the bottle tree, is a thick-trunked caudex shrub or small tree from southern Angola and Namibia, grown for its bottle-shaped trunk and spiny branches. It needs full sun, very good drainage and little water, especially in winter.
Pachypodium lealii, the bottle tree, is a species of plant included in the genus Pachypodium. The scientific name derives from the 19th century Portuguese geologist Fernando da Costa Leal, who described the bottle tree during an exploration in southern Angola.
This species can be either a shrub or a tree up to 6 meters tall and is characterized by the thick bottle-shaped trunk, which is almost branchless until the top. The branches are few and covered by slender thorns up to 30 cm long. Leaves are oblong and are covered with short hairs on both surfaces. The flowers, shown below in detail, are present in the spring, when the tree is leafless. The white flowers, characteristic of the family Apocynaceae, cluster around the tips of the branches.
Pachypodium ambongense · Madagascar Palm · Pachypodium bicolor · Pachypodium bispinosum · Pachypodium brevicaule · Pachypodium decaryi · Pachypodium densiflorum · Pachypodium eburneum · Madagascar Bottle Tree · Pachypodium gracilius · Pachypodium horombense · Madagascar Palm
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pachypodium lealii 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.
