PlantSnap Photos of the Week 2020

Pachira aquatica -- malabar chestnut

Pachira aquatica — malabar chestnut

Pachira aquatica is also known by the common names Malabar chestnut, French peanut, Guiana chestnut, Provision tree, Saba nut, Monguba , Pumpo and is commercially sold under the names Money tree and Money plant. It is a tropical wetland tree in the mallow family Malvaceae, native to Central and South America where it grows in swamps.

This tree is sometimes sold with a braided trunk and is commonly grown as a houseplant,

Pachira aquatica can grow up to 18 m (59.1 ft) in height in the wild. It has shiny green palmate leaves with lanceolate leaflets and smooth green bark.

This species forms a slightly thickened root with smaller roots or roots, which also serves as a water reservoir. The relatively smooth bark is brown through gray and slightly cracked; young branches are green. Outdoors, money trees produce a broad crown.

The transitional and long-stalked, composite hand-shaped, slightly leathery leaves are arranged at the branch ends. The petiole is up to 24 cm long. The leaves are bright green and shiny and consist of up to nine leaflets (fingers).

The leaves and flowers are also edible.

Its showy flowers, among the largest tree flowers in the world, have long, narrow petals that open like a banana peel and reveal hair-like yellowish orange stamens. The greenish-yellow or cream-colored, hermaphroditic and very large, short and thick-stalked flowers with double perianth resemble shaving brushes long stamens. The outside fine-haired, green-brown and overgrown are up to 2cm long. The elongated petals are up through 30 cm long. Flowers each up from about 180-250 pinkish stamens with elongate anthers.