Pachira aquatica Seeds | Money Tree
LATIN NAME: Pachira aquatica
COMMON NAME: Money Tree, Malabar Chestnut, Guiana Chestnut
Plant Profile
The money tree is a tropical tree of ten to twenty metres with a swollen green trunk, palmate leaves of five to seven leaflets and large cream flowers with a brush of long stamens. In the wild it grows in swamps and along rivers from Mexico to the Amazon.
The swollen trunk and the braided stems sold in shops are a nursery artefact: seedlings are lifted, their roots trimmed and their stems braided, and the plant survives because it stores water and starch in the trunk. The same species is grown in the tropics for its edible seed, which tastes of chestnut.
Science & Biotechnology
The tree is adapted to seasonal flooding and to the low oxygen of swamp soil. The swollen base is not a water store in the sense of a cactus; it is a buttress that keeps the tree upright in soft mud, and the plant survives drought by shedding its leaves rather than by holding water.
Pollination is by bats. The flowers open at night, produce a large quantity of nectar and are hung on long stalks clear of the foliage, which is the classic bat syndrome. The seed is large and rich in oil, and it is eaten boiled or roasted in Central America under the name provision tree.
Uses & Benefits
In the tropics the seed is boiled or roasted and eaten like a chestnut, and the young leaves are cooked as a green. The timber is light and soft and is used for packing cases and for plywood, and the fibre from the bark was used for rope.
As a houseplant the tree is sold as a good-luck charm, often with the stems braided and the trunk swollen. The plants sold this way are usually grown in shade in Florida and shipped in darkness, and they resent the low light of a northern room more than the labels suggest. The seed is also pressed for oil in Central America, and the oil is used for cooking and for soap in the same districts.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed in a warm, moist mix at twenty-five degrees, and germination takes a week to a fortnight. The seedling develops a swollen base within a year, and the trunk thickens faster if the plant is grown in a large pot and watered generously in summer.
Indoors, give it the brightest spot available, water when the top of the compost is dry and reduce watering in winter, since rot at the base is the commonest cause of loss. Outdoors it needs a frost-free climate and plenty of water. Do not braid the stems yourself, since the bark is soft and the wounds do not heal cleanly. In a cool room the plant stops growing altogether and holds its leaves until the light returns in spring, which is a resting period rather than a decline.
Our Take
A swamp tree sold as a desk ornament, and one that does better than most houseplants if it is given light and not overwatered. The braid is cosmetic, not natural.
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