This is one of the elephant trees of Baja California that forms gnarled trunks and thick branches with the pungent, resinous sap characteristic of this genus. The leaves are pinnately compound with acute, ovate, serrate leaflets and the bark peels in parchment-colored sheets, adding interest to the already desirable caudiciform habit. The peeling bark may serve to inhibit lichens from establishing on the stems, thereby assuring access to light for the photosynthetic branches. This offering will have special significance for those who knew the late nurseryman Bill Baker. It was in 1980 on his first collecting trip to Baja California that Bill picked up a small specimen under his number WB20. It has since grown into a sizable spreading shrubby tree anchoring the north end of our Baja California bed and produces copious amounts of self-fertile seed from which this offering is grown. HBG 97071, seedlings of HBG 45110, collected near San Borja, Baja Calif., Mexico. $7.
Published in the Cactus and Succulent Journal, Vol. 82 (2), March - April, 2010