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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Maytenus boaria - Mayten Tree

The Mayten tree is an evergreen rounded tree with long thin weeping branches, 25' tall x 15 wide, with  a fine texture. Has a tendency to root sucker on damaged root areas. There is one common cultivar that really looks different, the foliage is dark green. Mayten trees root sucker and they have a reputation of being weedy. Not sure I agree with the second point.



Leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple, narrowly elliptical, 1" long x 1/4 - 3/8" wide, lightly serrated margins, light green both surfaces.



This is the foliage of the popular cultivar 'Green Showers' which has larger darker green leaves, almost to 2.5" long.



Small yellowish green flowers in the axils of the leaves.



Small brown capsule with a orange seed.



Stems are green, thin and generally pendulous. They are often in groups like this sort of like a weeping willow or a cutleaf weeping birch.



Bark is dark brown and fissured like alligator skin.



Misidentification: Be sure you are looking at the foliage and see they are simple leaves and not compound, many people look too quickly at this one and think the leaves are pinnately compound and then they are lost.

Locations: Very common