Pronounciation: Sin-a-GAL-ee-a ber-lan-de-AIR-ee

Hardiness zones
Sunset 8, 9, 12-24
USDA 8-11

Landscape Use: Small accent tree or large background screening shrub for xeric landscapes. With some training it can be used as a nice patio tree.

Form & Character: Broadly spreading, lacy and fern like, soft, delicate.

Growth Habit: Mostly evergreen, woody, broadleaf perennial multi-branched and multi-trunk shrub or small tree, moderate growth rate to 5- to 20-feet (with ample supplemental water) tall with a broad crown of equal or greater spread.

Foliage/Texture:  Alternate leaves that are bipinnately compound, 4- to 6-inches long, with 6 to 10 pairs of major leaflets and numerous (30 to 40), very small elliptical, minor leaflets making the foliage look fern-like and very lacy, green to gray green in color; fine texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Numerous, very small, creamy white, in a tight round cluster (balls) 1/2-inch across on a 2- to 3-inches long stalk, fragrant. Fruits are broad, flat, brown, and velvety (3-inches long), ripen in the summer.

Seasonal Color: Creamy white flowers in early spring.

Temperature: Generally quite cold hardy to near 10^oF, also heat loving.

Light: Full sun

Soil: Tolerant

Watering: Guajillo requires little to no supplemental irrigation once established. However, like most desert adapted species, it grows much faster and larger if irrigated.

Pruning: Needs structural training to produce desired shape. 

Propagation: Seed, must acid scarify, 95% sulfuric acid for 30 minutes or until dark seed coat initially lightens. 

Disease and Pests: None, guajillo is resistant to Texas root rot.

Additional comments: Guajillo is a great desert-adapted landscape plant that's well suited for today's smaller urban spaces. It is an excellent alternative to Lysiloma watsonii when a small xeric landscape tree is desired. Guajillo tissues contain a diverse array of alkaloids with known toxic effects for domestic livestock.

Taxonomic tidbits: The species name berlandieri is derived from the name of Jean-Louis Berlandier, a French naturalist, who studied wildlife native to Texas and Mexico. Guajillo is a Mexican word that means foolish or funny.