Scientific: Pachygone laurifolia (Synonyms: Cebatha laurifolia, Cocculus angustifolius, Cocculus laurifolius, Holopeira laurifolia, Menispermum laurifolium, Nephroia laurifolia)
Common: snail seed, laurel-leaved snail tree
Family: Menispermaceae
Origin: Foothill regions of the Himalayan mountains, east to China, Taiwan, and south Japan.
Pronounciation: Pa-key-GO-ne lar-i-FOL-ee-a
Hardiness zones:
Sunset 8-9, 12-24
USDA 8-11
Landscape Use: Background or visual screen, small or large informal hedge, foundation plant for larger buildings, nice small multiple-trunk tree with dense canopy, excellent for use around water features, mesic landscape design themes.
Form & Character: Roughly rounded, decurrent and somewhat weeping, luxuriant, clean and VERY green, mesic, tropical.
Growth Habit: Evergreen, woody, broadleaf perennial large shrub to small tree, moderately vigorous, irregular to 25- to 35-feet tall with an equal spread, can be maintained at 6- to 10-feet tall.
Foliage/Texture: Dark green leaves, alternate in arrangement, to 6-inches long, ovate to lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, prominently 3-veined, glossy dark green; petiole to 3/4-inch long. Young stems green; medium to coarse texture depending on use and plant size.
Flowers & Fruits: Dioecious, small yellow-green flowers in slender, erect panicles to 4-inches long, usually shorter at leaf axillary meristems in spring. Fruit a very small black drupe (1/4-inch diameter). Plants are not reproductive (bare flowers and fruit) in shade.
Seasonal Color: None
Temperature: Tolerant
Light: Full sun to shade although becomes less dense in shade, eastern full sun with western shade best. Leaves grow to only 1/2 size in full sun and are lighter green and cupped.
Soil: Snail seed can develop interveinal foliar chlorosis in alkaline soils.
Watering: Regular watering
Pruning: Easily manipulated, prune to shape. Can even be severely renewal pruned to rejuvenate.
Propagation: Cutting
Disease and Pests: Foliar scale insects in tight landscape spaces with poor air circulation.
Additional comments: Snail seed is a surprisingly versatile (many landscape exposures and uses), locally old-fashioned (before the days of xeriscape in the 1980s), and large landscape shrub for mesic and oasis landscape design themes. Its very clean appearance makes it an excellent small patio tree once it has been trained as a standard. Sadly, its popularity in Phoenix as a landscape element has diminished.
