What about a list here then? I have just brought some small
broom plants brooms are of the leguminouse family, I am stepping up my act on the legume plants front, I am trying to put my money where my mouth goes and plant lot of leguminouse trees and bushes. I have looked at their
roots and they have small nodules on them.
I looked up legume trees, googled them and it seems they are more likely to have nodules on their roots if they are in poor soil, if they are in a nitrogen rich soil they have less nodules.
Locust trees and that is a north american tree are leguminouse
nitrogen fixing trees. The
wood can be cancerigenic i read in one place, so dont have a locust tree saw mill but i dont suppose occasional contact matters. It is useful for handles if you dont mind it, according to some, being a bit cancerigenic.
The cercis siliquastrum or judas tree, some say it has that name because it came from judea, that is after coming from further east. It is also called by some, the tree of love, it has heart shaped leaves and called the buddha tree, is a tree of the legume family. It is happy with a mediteranean climate, that is a bit of cold and heat and drought. The one I have bought had nitrogen fixing nodules on it roots.
Prosopis trees, mesquite trees are part of this family are trees that do for drier places but are not cold hardy i imagine, certainly mimosas aren't, which are the other desert leguminouse tree.
real acacias mimosas that are trees that grow on the borders of deserts are another legume family tree. Some of these desert legume trees maybe all of them, i have just looked up acacias and some can kill herbivores. I have not studied all of them, are good forage plants and the beans are food for humans.The prosopis cineria the prosopis of arabia and india is a forage tree with eatable beans too.
Many have very sweet edible beans for instance the algarrobo of Spain and the mequite tree of Arizona whose flour, mixed with wheat flour
Brad Lancaster uses for
pancakes as you will know if you whatch Brad Lancasters
video on premaculture on you tube.
One reason that legume trees are good forage plants is that proteins are molecules that include a atom or two of nitrogen so legume trees are usefull to animals that have to grow plenty of muscle as leguminous tress fabeaceas,with their nitrogen fixing nodules have plenty of nitrogen in them.
About freezing sensitive trees, I have seen horticultural fleece in the nearest garden shop to me sold to wrap round lemon trees, it lets in the light and air but protects from the cold, it will help my mimosas to get climatised now i have got myself to plant legume trees seriously and bought two mimosas.
There are several legume family bushes that i have not mentioned here because i dont know the names of the ones i can think of and there must be lots of nitrogen fixign plants I dont know of, I am not a great expert on nitrogen fixing trees and bushes.
None legume nitrogen fixing trees that i know of, the
eleagnus, the variety fruticans is the one Geof Lawson talks about in greening the desert that he calls guomi which is its name, which is the eleagnus frutican that Ken Fern also talks about because grown as a hedge it makes a good wind break. It does not mind winds, he has a place in Cornwall the South of England, so not too cold but windy being by the sea and he talks of it because it has fruit in April, he is the big expert on edible plants,he is a cute ex-bus driver turned super expert on edible and medicainal plants.
The fruit doesn't taste very exciting, sweet and alright but they are meant to be very good for you and are the eariiest thing fruiting, at least in Cornwall. Maybe how alright they taste depends on the type of eleagnus, people go wild about the fruit of the guomi, i have just chequed up on it, googled it.
They can make a small tree and must be pretty as such as the underside of their leaves are nearly white, pale creamy colored and a bit shiny, I would like to look up into one. Their flower is tiny maybe this depends on variety too but makes everything round it smell of a flower shop. I have brought one and seen nitrogen fixing nodules on its roots. Some say it goes rogue and gets all over the place.
The
ceanothus is another none legume nitrogen fixer but is a bush not a tree and a californian plant. I have seen nitrogen fixing nodules on its, roots they look like small bread crumbs. I do have photo of them that I have hung on a different bit of these forums.
and, now i have to double cheque on these plant names, i am just terrible on names and spelling. agri
rose macaskie madrid.
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