Cabbagebark Tree Andira inermis
Cabbagebark Tree is a perennial tree native to the lower 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It grows to 90 ft and blooms Jul in part shade – shade, with brown fruit.
More about this plant
Andira inermis is a nitrogen-fixing tree with medicinal properties native to the area from southern Mexico through Central America to northern South America ; it has been introduced to the Caribbean, the Antilles, Florida, and Africa and is often pollinated by bees. The tree has many names due to its wide distribution and multiple uses: it is also known as the almendro macho, almendro de río or river almond (Honduras), bastard cabbage tree, cabbage angelin, cabbage bark, cabbage tree, carne asada, guacamayo (Honduras), Jamaica cabbage tree, harino (Panama), moca, partridge wood, worm bark, or yellow cabbage tree. Wikipedia →
Growing & care
USDA PLANTS · TRY- Sun
- Part shade – shade
- Soil & moisture
- Low moisture
- Fertility need
- Medium
- Adapts to
- Coarse (sandy), Medium (loam)
- Hardiness
- USDA zone 11+
- Height
- 90 ft
- Mature width
- ~ 54 ft wide DERIVED derived estimate — open-grown crown allometry (height × growth-form ratio); not a measurement
- Spacing
- 8–12 ft apart from USDA planting density
- Growth rate
- Rapid
- Growth form
- Single stem
- Lifespan
- Perennial · long-lived
- Foliage
- Evergreen broadleaf · medium texture
- Active growth
- Year-round
- Fruit
- Brown
- Propagate by
- Seed, Cuttings, Bare root, Container
- Seed starting
- No stratification needed
- Seeds ripen
- Summer – Autumn seed-collection / harvest window
- In the trade
- Routinely available
- Deer browsing
- Low often deer-resistant
- Resprouts if cut
- Yes regrows after top-kill
Sow timing keys off your local last- and first-frost dates.
Wildlife & pollinators
How pollinator value is scored →❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host
Recorded feeding on Andira in North America, including:
Wildlife & visitors 2 mammals
Open records of who else uses Cabbagebark Tree — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.
Recorded eaten by 2 mammals species (fruit, seed, browse):
Related plants
More Andira →
How we know this (3) Methods & honest limits
We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.
Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.
A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.
For woody plants that have a height but no measured crown, we estimate width = height × a crown-to-height ratio fit for that plant’s form (conifers narrower than broadleaf trees, shrubs widest), calibrated on our measured open-grown crowns and capped at the largest one ever measured. A measured crown always wins; herbaceous plants get nothing (no anchor).
Honest limits: A coarse class-median estimate for garden-scale spacing, not a measurement; woody single/multi-stem forms only.
Sources for this entry (33) Open & cited
Cite this page Open data, please attribute
PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).
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