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.
Simarouba amara
Also called Paradise Tree
Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers.
The natural range of S. amara is in the Neotropics, the ecoregion of Central and South America. Its range extends from Guatemala in the north, to Bolivia in the south and from Ecuador in the west, to the east coast of Brazil. It has been introduced to the islands of Dominica and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea, becoming naturalised in Puerto Rico. On BCI, mature trees (>10 cm dbh) are found at a frequency of 5 per hectare, in Ecuador at 0.7 per hectare and in French Guiana at 0.4 per hectare. Genetic analysis of populations suggests that it has always been relatively common within its range. It grows in rainforests and in savannahs. The seedlings of S. amara are rare in primary forest due to their light-demanding habit.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Simarouba amara by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
