Home / Browse / Hebestigma / False Locust

No openly-licensed photo yetWe add Creative-Commons photos from iNaturalist as they’re published.

Fabaceae family

False Locust Hebestigma cubense

False Locust is an introduced perennial tree, found in Puerto Rico. It grows to 104 ft.

More about this plant

Hebestigma is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the subfamily Faboideae. It includes a single species, Hebestigma cubense, a tree endemic to Cuba. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

Height: 104 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Broadleaf

In the garden

Canopy layer — Sits in the canopy of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

Nitrogen fixer — Fixes atmospheric nitrogen through root-nodule bacteria — builds soil fertility for itself and its neighbours, cutting fertiliser need.Open guide →

derived roles

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits

Leaf build Direct fact

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.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (11) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status

[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[07] Ecological value — GloBI

[08] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[09] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Nitrogen fixation — Werner et al. 2014 (Dryad, CC0)

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

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).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX

Loading…

Enable JavaScript for a ready-to-copy citation with today’s access date, or cite this page’s URL with the date you viewed it.

Ecological value open data

1 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below.

Caterpillar host 1

⚠ non-native — reduced keystone value

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 1/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Introduced to the U.S.

Recorded in 1 state.

Introduced — Puerto Rico

Recorded in 1 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Introduced

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Nitrogen fixer — forms root nodules that capture atmospheric nitrogen, building soil fertility. It nodulates with rhizobia (the legume symbiosis). · Werner et al.

Wood density high

0.73 g/cm³

dense, durable wood — good firewood / charcoal & long-lasting coppice or hügel material

Seed mass medium

62 mg

small seed — straightforward to sow

Leaf nitrogen average

18.4 mg/g

leaf nitrogen — a rough guide to compost/mulch value

Leaf build tough

Thick & tough

thick, tough, long-lived leaves — a thrifty build that shrugs off shade, drought & grazing (measured leaf area per weight 7.0 mm²/mg)

Leaf size large

Large

large leaves (measured leaf area ~109 cm²) — a coarse, shade-casting texture

Deep dive — what these mean

Wood density 0.73 g/cm³ — how heavy the wood is for its size. Denser wood = hotter, longer-burning firewood and tougher poles; lighter wood rots fast (quick mulch).

Seed mass 62 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Leaf nitrogen 18.4 mg/g — measured leaf N. Higher = richer prunings for compost/mulch (a measured stand-in for "dynamic accumulator" claims).

Leaf build — how thick & tough the leaves are. Thin, lightweight leaves grow fast and crave light; thick, tough leaves last longer and shrug off shade, drought & grazing. (measured leaf area per dry weight, 7.0 mm²/mg)

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

False Locust Hebestigma cubense

Growing & care

Related plants