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Fabaceae family

Egyptian Thorn Vachellia nilotica

Egyptian Thorn is an introduced plant, found in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
Tallo — Jucker et al. 2025 (CC BY 4.0) — wild crown width — Mature width
Mature width
≈ 30 ft wide wild/forest-grown — open-grown specimens spread wider
In the garden
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.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
✦ Bees specialist-bee host · 5 bee visitors

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Vachellia is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →

5 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Egyptian Thorn :

Anthidiellum eritrinum Colletes microdontus · cellophane bee Colletes somereni · cellophane bee Hylaeus xanthostoma · masked bee Megachile cornigera · leafcutter bee
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024. Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 1 mammal

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

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

Antilope cervicapra · Blackbuck
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.
Sources for this entry (14) 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
[07] Ecological value — GloBI · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[08] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[10] Nitrogen fixation — Werner et al. 2014 (Dryad, CC0)
[13] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[14] 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.
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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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