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Sterculiaceae family

Panama Tree Sterculia apetala

Panama Tree is an introduced perennial tree, found in Puerto Rico. It grows to 90 ft.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Panama Tree is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Red Alder
Native
Red Alder
Alnus rubra
●●●●●
Subalpine Fir
Native
Subalpine Fir
Abies lasiocarpa
●●●●○
Spanish Cedar
Native
Spanish Cedar
Cedrela odorata
●●●○○
Cabbagebark Tree
Native
Cabbagebark Tree
Andira inermis
●●○○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
Tallo — Jucker et al. 2025 (CC BY 4.0) — wild crown width — Mature width
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
90 ft
Mature width
≈ 75 ft wide wild/forest-grown — open-grown specimens spread wider
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen broadleaf
In the garden
Canopy layer — Sits in the canopy of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
Chop-and-drop biomass — Soft, low-density wood is quick-growing and easy to cut back — coppice it and drop the trimmings in place as mulch.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.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
✦ Bees 3 bee visitors

3 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Panama Tree :

Scaptotrigona pectoralis Tetragonisca angustula Trigona fuscipennis
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 1 bird

Open records of who else uses Panama Tree — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 1 bird species (fruit, seed, browse):

Brotogeris jugularis · Orange-Chinned Parakeet
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) 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.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

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.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
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 (17) 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 — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Ecological value — GloBI
[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[16] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[17] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
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).

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