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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-984
Soapberry
Sapindus saponaria
Soapberry is an evergreen tree with a dense, rounded crown, growing to roughly the size of a large shade tree while tolerating salt spray, drought and poor coastal soils. Its fruit husks foam into a natural soap and shampoo when soaked in water, and the hard black seeds are strung into beads and rosaries. The wood is worked into boxes, toys and small construction, and the dense canopy shelters birds and pollinators, making it a useful pioneer tree for reforestation.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Moderate · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- Not yet recorded
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 20–40 ft
- Mature spread
- 20–40 ft
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Not yet recorded
- Spread pattern
- Both
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Allspice
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Almond
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American Beech
Fagus grandifolia
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American Elm
Ulmus americana
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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