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Beaucarnea stricta (Estrellas) - This small evergreen succulent tree grows very slowly to 15 to 20 feet tall with a large swollen base (caudex) that usually has a nice tortoise shell textured pattern from which arise a single erect straight trunk until first flowering and then it forms a few branches. The stem tips hold long straight bluish gray fairly stiff grass-like leaves in clusters like pompoms at the end of the branches.
Plant in full sun to light shade in a well-drained soil and water deeply and infrequently. Hardy to short duration freezes below 20°F, a bit hardier than the common ponytail or bottle palm, Beaucarnea recurvata. Makes a nice specimen in the garden if you have many years to watch it grow, otherwise it is an excellent drought tolerant potted specimen.
Beaucarnea stricta is native to Oaxaca where it can be found in dry tropical deciduous forest on fairly steep hillsides, generally in acidic volcanic soils. It is similar to Beaucarnea purpusii (which has a wider range growing from the Tehuacán-Cuscatlán Valley of Oaxaca north into Puebla) as well as to Beaucarnea gracilis, which is endemic to the Tehuacán-Cuscatlán Valley and Beaucarnea hiriartiae from Guerrero. The name of the genus honors Jean-Baptiste Beaucarne, a 19th century Belgian plant collector and horticulturist who first collected a flowering specimen of Beaucarnea recurvata. This genus was long put in the extensive Agave family, the Agavaceae, but current treatment places it with Sansevieria, Dracaena, Dasylirion, and Nolina in the Ruscus family, the Ruscaceae. It was also previously combined with Nolina, but the current treatment has elevated Beaucarnea back to the genus level and included within it the genus Calibanus.
In the 1980s we grew this plant from large specimens purchased from a Texas nursery that sadly were plants that were likely dug from the wild and we still have one of these old specimens in a cement pot near our sales office. Our current plants are all seed grown. The genus Beaucarnea is now a listed genus protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and they cannot be shipped across international borders without special permits.
This information about Beaucarnea stricta displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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