Bucida buceras (Black olive) in Artesia, CA

[fastfeat]

Saw this young 15' Bucida buceras growing at an auto repair yard in Artesia yesterday. Been through at least one, maybe two winters. This is the first tree I've seen here in CA, tho Leon (XOTX Tropico) said that trees were in W. Hollywood. Others apparently grew/grow off Camino del Mar in Del Mar. Anyone else tried it here?

[stevethegator]

Cool! What other Florida tropical hardwoods to people grow in Cali? Gumbo Limbo, seagrape?

[fastfeat]

  On 4/7/2014 at 6:38 PM, stevethegator said:

Cool! What other Florida tropical hardwoods to people grow in Cali? Gumbo Limbo, seagrape?

Seen Coccoloba uvifera, Swietenia mahogani here, though both definitely smallish compared to SoFla. Haven't seen gumbo-limbo tho.

[fastfeat]

Here's the Del Mar planting, at 9th and Camino del Mar. (H/T Randy Baldwin).

[Gonzer]

Shameless plug for Corona brew!

[virtualpalm]

FYI, the black olive (Bucida buceras) is not native to Florida, but the spiny black olive (B. spinosa) is. There is also a hybrid called 'Shady Lady' that is popular here in south Florida.

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

I remember my old college instructor saying that if Europeans took another one or two thousand years to start coming to the Americas, Bucida buceras would probably have made it to Florida on its own anyway. The species is extremely variable and found throughout the Caribbean Basin. It was only a matter of time before it would have become a Florida native.

It has certainly fallen out of favor in the SoFla landscape because of its size and messiness. I would like to try it out as a Niwaki subject. It would be perfect for several styles of that pruning.

[stevethegator]

And now they get whitefly out the wazoo,

along with gumbo limbo

[fastfeat]

'Shady Lady' is one of my fav trees, especially when well-pruned. If it has some hybrid vigor (and cold-hardiness from B. spinosa) it might well make a decent small patio or garden tree for mildest SoCal yards.

Would also be curious as to its heat tolerance in the low desert. May even perform better here (with irrigation) than in coastal areas.

[chinandega81]

  On 4/8/2014 at 10:18 PM, fastfeat said:

'Shady Lady' is one of my fav trees, especially when well-pruned. If it has some hybrid vigor (and cold-hardiness from B. spinosa) it might well make a decent small patio or garden tree for mildest SoCal yards.

 

Would also be curious as to its heat tolerance in the low desert. May even perform better here (with irrigation) than in coastal areas.

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I'm in the Imperial Valley of California (low desert) and have two Shady Lady varieties in my yard. They were planted in June on a day when it was 119. No sunburn or sunscald at all, the hotter and sunnier, the better. Very fast growing and dense foliage out here, they don't mind out poor or salty soils either.

They are very common in Mexicali and points furthur south. They could easily be grown with minimal winter protection in the Coachella Valley and into the low deserts of AZ as well. Not sure why it isn't more common here.

[Silas_Sancona]

  On 9/26/2016 at 6:52 PM, chinandega81 said:

I'm in the Imperial Valley of California (low desert) and have two Shady Lady varieties in my yard. They were planted in June on a day when it was 119. No sunburn or sunscald at all, the hotter and sunnier, the better. Very fast growing and dense foliage out here, they don't mind out poor or salty soils either.

They are very common in Mexicali and points furthur south. They could easily be grown with minimal winter protection in the Coachella Valley and into the low deserts of AZ as well. Not sure why it isn't more common here.

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Good to hear yours did well. Had the same experience here though i did give mine a little shade since it is on the small side atm.  Sea Grapes and Jamaican Caper i have also had no issues through the summer here as well.

[chinandega81]

I also have a Sea Grape. Mine did fine too...it's the cold winter nights that have me worried already. Hopefully after this brutally hot summer, we will be rewarded with a mild, warm winter....

[mnorell]

  On 4/8/2014 at 4:16 PM, Jerry@TreeZoo said:

I remember my old college instructor saying that if Europeans took another one or two thousand years to start coming to the Americas, Bucida buceras would probably have made it to Florida on its own anyway. The species is extremely variable and found throughout the Caribbean Basin. It was only a matter of time before it would have become a Florida native.

 

It has certainly fallen out of favor in the SoFla landscape because of its size and messiness. I would like to try it out as a Niwaki subject. It would be perfect for several styles of that pruning.

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Bucida buceras is one of my favorite trees, particularly the full-size version. Before I moved to Florida I was completely unaware of this species, and it took me a while to figure out what these beautiful trees actually were. When it is laden with bright-green new growth spilling out of its branches like some giant fern (and I think it's very easy to confuse with certain species of Ficus at a distance) it is something to behold. Nobody actually knows whether it made it on its own to Florida or not (nor how many times over the ages it may have arrived, established, and then died out), and as we have no definitive guide as to what was here hundreds or thousands of years ago, nor what has arrived just this afternoon on a burst of wind, the whole argument becomes rather academic.

People get so violently obsessive about what is "native" or not here in the Keys (or elsewhere in South Florida, for that matter), with an eye to ban anything that falls outside of their own definitions. These folks are almost always "master gardener" types who took a small set of coffee-clatch-style classes out of a notebook in which they were force-fed somebody's idea of "knowledge" without understanding any underlying principles of plant or animal migration and evolution, the waxing and waning of populations based on changing climatic conditions, nor many of the most basic botanical and horticultural concepts. But these are the first people to jump in front of a microphone or write articles in local papers propagating their half-knowledge to a general audience.

I was told by a woman from the Key West Garden Club that "native" plants are those that were here when the English arrived. Oh? What about the Spanish, the Calusas, the Caribes, everyone trading plants throughout the Caribbean basin for thousands of years, ocean currents bringing coconuts for hundreds of years and plenty of other "sea beans" for much longer, and winds and birds carrying seeds, etc., not to mention the very important fact that plant/animal migration has not stopped at some thumb-tacked point in time. John Kunkel Small's 1913 Flora of the Florida Keys shows Bucida buceras as native to "Hammocks, Elliott's Key" and he notes that it also is native in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Antilles. There is no note (as with Terminalia) that it is "escaped from culivation." Lately most of the "native plant" gurus have, in the face of new and apparently incontrovertible evidence, had to grudgingly release their angry assertions that Cordia sebestena and Clusia rosea were not natives, despite Mr. Small having listed both as natives of the Keys (and the Geiger Tree also to other areas of South Florida).

[Silas_Sancona]

  On 9/26/2016 at 8:13 PM, chinandega81 said:

I also have a Sea Grape. Mine did fine too...it's the cold winter nights that have me worried already. Hopefully after this brutally hot summer, we will be rewarded with a mild, warm winter....

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I hear ya,

While just a shot in the dark at this point, the lowest, forecast low through Dec. 24 i have seen via Accuweather is a day or two right around 31/32F for Chandler.  If it holds, Christmas Eve is looking pretty nice by Phoenix standards, 71/45 is forecast for now.. Hopefully there aren't any days in the 50's like the area had at the same time last year ( according to Accuweather's almanac).

While strictly a local, Florida- based observation, i noticed most Sea Grapes i saw around Clearwater/St. Pete after the 2009/10 freeze experienced just total leaf drop.  Me and 3 other guys i worked with spent 3 days clearing leaves off the grounds of a Yacht club in Clearwater a week after the freeze. They had Sea Grape everywhere throughout the property. 

Others id observe near my Apartment had 10-30% tip damage but any die back they'd experienced wasn't easy to see by mid-May. While most were generally larger and more established, even smaller plants located around the outside of the patio at a bar i frequented in Tampa recovered just fine post freeze. Based on that knowledge, id guess well- established Sea Grapes would experience similar post frost/freeze effects here in the low desert under typical, non-extreme winters, especially if up against a house, or, under some sort of canopy.  

Regardless, i want to get the two i have large enough that i can take some back up cuttings before really testing cold tolerance, just in case.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Silas_Sancona

[richtrav]

Neat find, unfortunately the trees in Del Mar appear to have been removed some time in 2015. They should do very well in z10 of the desert southwest, they were not rare in Hermosillo and seemed to love the heat but for some reason I didn't see them on the coast around San Carlos and I haven't seen them in the Yucatan, where you'd expect to them to be all over the place. But they're commonly used as street trees in downtown Guadalajara, so go figure. 

Here in South Texas I've only seen what looks to me like the Shady Lady type hybrid. Some look like they're a good 15 years old and appear to have suffered little damage in the 2011 freeze, performing better than just about any Ficus. One nursery down here occasionally gets them in from Florida.

So just how hardy is B. spinosa supposed to be?

[chinandega81]

  On 9/28/2016 at 8:45 AM, richtrav said:

Neat find, unfortunately the trees in Del Mar appear to have been removed some time in 2015. They should do very well in z10 of the desert southwest, they were not rare in Hermosillo and seemed to love the heat but for some reason I didn't see them on the coast around San Carlos and I haven't seen them in the Yucatan, where you'd expect to them to be all over the place. But they're commonly used as street trees in downtown Guadalajara, so go figure. 

Here in South Texas I've only seen what looks to me like the Shady Lady type hybrid. Some look like they're a good 15 years old and appear to have suffered little damage in the 2011 freeze, performing better than just about any Ficus. One nursery down here occasionally gets them in from Florida.

So just how hardy is B. spinosa supposed to be?

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I can tell you from experience, in my yard, mine has suffered burn back when temps have reached the upper 20s. They grow back quickly starting in Spring. Like any tropical tree, they burn on the outside and the damage works it's way in. A light or brief freeze doesn't cause too much damage.