Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

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.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Shittimwood

Vachellia seyal

Also called Talh, Thirtythorn, Whistlingtree, Thirsty Thorn

Shittimwood
Photo: Björn Appel, CC BY-SA 3.0

Shittimwood (Vachellia seyal) is a thorny African and Arabian acacia tree, 6 to 10 m tall, grown in dry lowlands and often found in damp valleys and wadis. It thrives in full sun and tolerates heat and drought once established.

Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply but infrequently; tolerates long dry spells once established, and needs more during establishment.
Soil
Well-drained soil, tolerant of heavy clay and sandy types.
Temperature
20–40 °C; frost-tender, protect below 5 °C.
How easy
Easy
Native range
Sahara to Eritrea and Zambia, Arabian Pen.
Climate
desert or dry shrubland

About

Vachellia seyal, the red acacia, known also as the shittah tree (the source of shittim wood), is a thorny, 6– to 10-m-high (20 to 30 ft) tree with a pale greenish or reddish bark.

Other Vachellia plants

Vachellia leucophloea · Vachellia nilotica subsp. hemispherica · Vachellia schaffneri · Vachellia tortilis · Vachellia xanthophloea · Roman Cassie · Bullhorn Wattle · Camel thorn · Sweet Acacia · Robber Thorn · Sweet Thorn · Babul

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Vachellia seyal 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…