Manihot Species, Hardy Tapioca

I moved this plant three times (and may move it again later this winter), as it was not getting enough sunlight to thrive. Even so, the d...Read Moreelicate foliage is a great foil for other, coarser plants. I picked several seeds and left them for a few days in a saucer in my kitchen. Coming back from shopping yesterday, the seeds were gone!! I discovered several orange segment shaped outer hulls on the counter. I looked for similar shaped seeds. None. I finally discovered tiny tiny black seeds in the dark grout between the tiles on my counter. Mystery solved!! I am using the "paper towel" method to germinate them. We'll see......Update......tiny seeds I found had dropped from a vase full of basil which had flowered!!! Never found the big seeds.

recived this plant from a raleigh n c plant swat about six inches tall it is now about ten ft tall and loks outstanding here in zone 8 it...Read More does not produce many seedlings wish it did, but has a thousand seed balls ready to pop,very tropical looking the main stem is about 4 inches in diameter,and it dis back in winter but recovers in spring

An attractive, delicate-foliaged large shrub to small tree (10-12 feet). Over several years it can form a fairly thick trunk. I finally h...Read Moread to take my plant out, but not until its trunk had reached ca. 8 inches across after ca. 10 years in the ground.

Bees love the fairly insignificant greenish flowers, and the plant develops hard, explosive seed pods that make spending time around the tree in early autumn...um, interesting. The seeds germinate readily, and can give you a yard full of these if you let them go; however the seedlings pull up easily, roots and all. Cutting the plant back as it goes to seed will avoid the exploding seedpod issue, but it leaves you a stump for half the year. Come spring, the plant comes back to life.

My favorite characteristic of this was its delicate leaves that made an amazing web of shadows on a nearby wall. Overall, not a perfect plant, but an interesting one. Easy to grow.

Mmmmm... what can I say about this small tree? It grows everywhere here in Buenos Aires and it is actually considered a weed!
It's...Read More not very used as an ornamental plant. Here it's not considered atractive but, there are other parts of Argentina where people cultivate it in they gardens and find it very rare and unusual! So I guess I'm satying "neutral" on it!
We know it as "falso cafeto" here in Buenos Aires. I have no clue about why they call it like this. I've never seen a "real cafeto plant" and don't even know if it even exists! =S
I guess it is because the way their seeds look like! I'm going to upload a picture of them.
Anyway! It also has another common name: Mandioca brava and I guess that's very similar to its common name in English. Mandioca is a plant that has edible roots and I think it is related to this small tree.
Oh, in hot summer days, its fruits pop out releasing the seeds, sending them far away from where the tree is.

When I first saw this 'tree' growing in a plant nut's garden, I had to have one. This guy had them all over his back yard- these tall (u...Read Morep to 12') spindly (1" diameter at the most) trees topped with these really ornate, deeply cut, circular leaves- they looked sort of tropical, yet were growing in an extreme xeriscape environment- a sandy-clay back yard that had literally not been watered in years- only the brief winter rains to survive on. And yet the plants looked great. Each little tree had a sparse crown of these spoke-wheel leaves. So I dug up a seedling and wa-la, had myself a thriving Manihot. And it grew very fast!

The following spring it produced a load of insignificant flowers that dangle from the tops of the trees and literally swarmed with bees. We had a lot of flowers in the yard, but the bees definitely preferred these. The tree hummed from several meters away from all the attention. The foliage was dense and produced a significant shade. Guess this plant likes more water than it was getting at the xeriscape yard.

Later in the spring to mid summer, little ornamental fruiting bodies that look a lot like miniature basketballs (green with orange striping, just like a basketball except in color, with slightly rough texture about 1" in diameter)hung all over the tree. It was gorgeous. Then, as summer progressed, loud popping sounds could be heard from the this tree. The bees were long gone, but now it was noisy again. What that noise was were these itty basketballs exploding. If you were too close at the time of an explosion, you could get hit in the face by flying seed. And seed went everywhere.

And it germinated everywhere, effortlessly. Fortunately the winter does more than defoliate this plant in my area (9b)- it melts most of the newest wood back to the stem- self pruning I call it. But all the little seedlings which showed up over 20' away sometimes did just fine that following spring. They look great, make a very mottled, attractive shade.. but if you don't want a yard full of trees all over, then be careful about adding this one to your landscape.

Now I have no more adult- hacked it down to the ground... but seem to be forever battling the new 'weed' problem. Seems some seed lasts over several winters.

Have had this tree through several exceptionally mild winters and the die back I thought was due to cold is just a natural winter process for this tree- dies back somewhat every late autumn whether it's cold or not. Leaves some unsightly dead branches to remove in spring (gettting tougher to reach those now that it's over 10' tall) but not a big deal.