10 things to know about palo verde trees 🌼🌼 (2024)

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The Foothill Palo Verde can live to be about 100 years old. Some can even age up to 400 years.

6. Blue Palo Verde can grow up to 40 feet

The Foothill Palo Verde usually matures at less than 30 feet.

7. You can eat the seeds

Palo verde seeds have been used and eaten for hundreds of years, the Desert Museum says, with the Seri eating them fresh, toasted or ground as flour and the Tohono O'odham eating them fresh from the pods.

The Arizona Native Plant Society compares Foothill Palo Verde seeds to snow peas. They've been known to be a little sweet, while Blue Palo Verde seeds are a bit more bitter.

You can also wait to harvest them until the seed is fully developed and the pod is dry, usually in summer. At this stage, they're best eaten sprouted.Learn more about the harvesting process here.

8. You can also eat the flowers

You can eat these yellow bursts of spring raw. Sprinkle some in your next salad.

9. They may not contribute as much as you think to your seasonal allergies

According to this TikTok from Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden, palo verdes rely on animals like beetles and bees to pollinate them, unlike other plants that rely more on wind. "The main culprits are wind-pollinated plants," they say.

The pollen produced by palo verdes is said to be sticky, making it more difficult (though not impossible) to travel far in the wind. However, the large quantities of dried fallen yellow flowers are known to do some damage when carried through the wind.

This 2017 storyfrom the Arizona Daily Star says other plants, including ragweed, rabbitbush, ash, mulberry and olive trees,are often considered greater problems for allergy sufferers.

10. The cactus is their best friend

According to a Desert Museum fact sheet, the palo verde is the primary nurse plant for baby saguaros.