Please help me to find the name of this legume tree

Hi everyone,

I have planted and admired this legume tree since some years now and I actually don't even know the name..... it is to be found in Tenerife all the way from the coast to 800meters over sea level. Coast is at minimum temperature of 13ºC and at 800 it might reach 5ºC.

Thank you for your help

It appears to be a specimen of Albizia julibrissin  also called the Persian silk tree, pink silk tree, Mimosa, and several other names.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:It appears to be a specimen of Albizia julibrissin  also called the Persian silk tree, pink silk tree, Mimosa, and several other names.

Redhawk

I am not sure about that as it has not the tipical pink flowers of  Albizia julibrissin, the flowers are only whitish-yellowish and much smaller then the ones of  Albizia julibrissin .....

Leucaena leucocephala ?

Does it resemble one of the 28 species of Acacia in this article? http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/selection/ss/Meet-28-Species-of-Acacia-Trees-and-Shrubs.htm  There are included pictures and even if it's not native in your area, many acacia trees are used in landscaping and may have escaped into the wild.

Doing a little more searching, the Silver Wattle (a species of acacia) has a lighter yellow flower, leaves like that and is present in Spain. To further confuse matters, one of it's common names is mimosa.

It's a yellow flame tree

Steve Farmer wrote:It's a yellow flame tree

No, it is definitively not Peltophorum pterocarpum.

I found it doing a bipinnate leaf search! It is Paraserianthes lophantha!!!

Just looking at google images of both these latin names, How do you tell the difference when not flowering? Loads of them growing along side of road near me and Ive got some baby trees from seeds I collected. The young trees are indistinguishable from young leucaena leucocephala but the seed pods of Leucaena are quite different. I thought I had identified it as a yellow flame, seed pods look the same between yellow flame and wattle? What tool did you use for i.d. I've got a few other leguminous looking trees I'm not quite sure about.

and of course some of the non nitrogen fixing but still leguminous red flame (delonix regia), tho that's easy to tell from the seed pod, which needs a hand grenade to get into.

Steve Farmer wrote:Just looking at google images of both these latin names, How do you tell the difference when not flowering? Loads of them growing along side of road near me and Ive got some baby trees from seeds I collected. The young trees are indistinguishable from young leucaena leucocephala but the seed pods of Leucaena are quite different. I thought I had identified it as a yellow flame, seed pods look the same between yellow flame and wattle? What tool did you use for i.d. I've got a few other leguminous looking trees I'm not quite sure about.

Leucaena leaves are darker, I knew because I know the flower but didn't had any picture. Where are you based in tenerife? do you have a farm? How is it called ?

Michael, some things to look for that may help in proper identification are:

Does it show allelopathic tendencies towards other plants and trees? (this would show up as stunted growth of other, surrounding plants and trees)

shape, size and colors of the flowers.  There are several in this genus that have yellow flowers but each is significantly different, (size of flower, shape of petals)

Steve Farmer wrote:Where are you based in tenerife? do you have a farm? How is it called ?

Growing trees on 4.2 hectares of bare rocky land south of Chimiche (Granadilla de Abona). Not living on the land yet but that's the eventual plan. Looks nice and green where you are.