Japanese Pagoda Tree

COMMON NAME: Japanese Pagoda Tree, Chinese Scholar Tree

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Styphnolobium (Saphora)

FAMILY: japonicum (japonica)

Hardiness:" Zones 4 to 8

Growth habit: A medium-sized tree to 65 feet in height, usually broad rounded crown. Native of China and Korea, introduced to Japan and often planted around Buddhist temples for its showy flowers.

Foliage: Alternate, pinnately compound, 6 to 10 inches, 7 to 17 leaflets; individual leaflets ovate, 1 to 2 inches long, entire margin, green above, slightly lighter below.

Flowers and fruit: Flower is creamy white, pea-like, in long hanging cluster, each flowers ½ inch long, appearing in mid-summer. Fruit is a legume, yellow-green becoming light brown at maturity, 3 to 8 inches long, constricted between seeds, looks like a string of pearls; persisting all winter.

Twigs: Moderate, shiny green, lighter lenticels, raised nodes, leaf scar a deep U-shape encircling the small brown buds; no true terminal bud.

Bark: Gray-brown, splitting into ridges and furrows, reddish brown in furrows, furrows mostly long and vertical.

Landscape value: Japanese Pagoda tree can be utilized as either a shade tree or a larger ornamental. This tree grows well in humid temperate regions and prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil, yet there are examples of successful planting in our semi-arid climate and in urban applications. In Denver, you can see Japanese Pagoda Trees growing in tree lawns along York Street, open grown in Washington Park and used as a street tree in tree pits near Union Station. The largest Japanese Pagoda Tree in Colorado is in Denver at sixty-eight feet tall and thirty three inches in diameter.

Information sources: Wendy McCartney, Colorado State Forest Service

Photo by wikipedia