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Strombocarpa strombulifera

Prosopis strombulifera

Also called Argentine screwbean, Creeping Mesquite

Strombocarpa strombulifera
Photo: Julia Scher, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Public domain

A spiny, spreading shrub in the legume family, native to arid and saline soils of Argentina and grown or naturalized elsewhere, notably in California where it is an invasive weed. Its key trait is tolerance of dry, salty ground and it spreads readily by long roots.

Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Needs little water once established; irrigate sparingly, as it is drought tolerant.
Soil
Tolerates poor, arid and saline soils; sandy or gravelly mixes suit it best.
How easy
Easy

About

Strombocarpa strombulifera (formerli Prosopis strombulifera) is a species of mesquite or algarrobo, a shrub in the legume family. It is known by the English common names Argentine screwbean and creeping screwbean and the Spanish common name retortuño. This shrub is native to Argentina, where it grows in arid and saline soils. It became well known in California after it was introduced to Imperial County and took hold in the wild, growing as an invasive noxious weed. The plant grows from a network of long, spreading roots and may grow to three meters in height. Many plants may grow together in an area, forming a monotypic stand. The shrub has waxy-textured leaves made up of a pair of leaflets which are each divided into several pairs of secondary leaflets each up to a centimeter long. Whitish spines up to 2 cm long appear near the leaf bases.

Other Prosopis plants

Algarrobo Blanco · Mesquite · Smooth Mesquite · Jand · Syrian mesquite · Neltuma glandulosa · Prosopis koelziana · Neltuma kuntzei · Neltuma nigra · Neltuma pallida · Strombocarpa pubescens · Neltuma velutina

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Strombocarpa strombulifera 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.

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