The money tree is a green plant suitable for indoor growing.

Pachira aquatica, also known as the money tree, is a small tree, 4-5 m tall, with a rather loose crown, and young branches that are chestnut brown and hairless.

Money tree

The leaflets have short petioles or are nearly sessile. Flowers are solitary at the tips of branches and in leaf axils; the pedicel is stout, covered with yellow stellate tomentum, and deciduous; the calyx is cup-shaped and nearly leathery; the petals are pale yellow-green, narrowly lanceolate to linear, with the upper half recurved; the stamen tube is relatively short, and the filaments together with the stamen tube are 13-15 cm long, yellow in the lower part and turning red upward, with the anthers narrowly linear and arcuate; the style is longer than the stamens and dark red. The capsule is nearly pear-shaped, with a thick, woody pericarp, almost yellowish brown, hairless outside and densely covered with long woolly hairs inside, dehiscing, with many seeds per locule. The seeds are large, irregularly ladder-like and wedge-shaped, with a dark brown seed coat bearing white lines, and contain multiple embryos. The flowering period is from May to November, the fruits ripen successively, and the seeds germinate naturally after falling to the ground.

Money tree

Native to Mexico in Central America to Costa Rica. Cultivated in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.

Ornamental:

Pachira aquatica has a beautiful plant form, and its stems and leaves remain green all year round. It is a very popular indoor foliage plant. The branches of young seedlings are soft and tolerant of pruning, and can be trained into stump landscapes and bonsai of various artistic shapes. In the south it is often used as a street tree and landscape tree.

Money tree

Edible:

The fruit peel can be eaten when unripe, and the seeds can be stir-fried and eaten.

Money tree seeds

Economic:

Since 2006 it has developed very rapidly in China's flower market. During festivals, hotels, restaurants, businesses and residents often rush to buy it, in hopes of good luck and good fortune.