Galapagos Species Database

The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.

Neltuma juliflora (Sw.) Raf.

Algarrobo, cují, carbón, Mesquite, alfarroba

A beautiful shrub or small tree, to about 10 m tall, with a smooth bark and short spines. The leaves are composed of small deep green leaflets arranged in parallel, the veins are evident and there are 6-20 pairs of leaflets. The small flowers are arranged on bottle-brush spikes. The bean pods hang in groups (Wiggins and Porter, 1971).

Found in arid and semiarid areas (Wiggins and Porter, 1971).

Taxonomy

Domain
Eukaryota

Kingdom
Plantae

Phylum
Magnoliophyta

Class
Magnoliopsida (= Dicotyledoneae)

Order
Fabales

Family
Fabaceae

Genus
Neltuma

Species
juliflora

Taxon category: Accepted

Syn.: Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC. (Hughes et al., 2022); Syn.: Acacia cumanensis Willd. fide Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew & Missouri Botanical Garden (2013).

Origin: Native

Distribution

Map of specimen collection localities or observation records for this species in our collections database.

Distribution: The native range of this species is Mexico to Venezuela, Northern South America, Caribbean (POWO, 2023).

References

  • Wiggins, I.L. Porter, D.M. (1971) Flora of the Galapagos Islands Standford University Press, Stanford.
  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2022) Plants of the world online POWO (2022): Plants of the world online. Published on the Internet; Https://powo.science.kew.org/
  • Hughes, C. Ringelberg, J., Lewis, G. & Catalano, S. (2022) Disintegration of the genus Prosopis L. (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae, mimosoid clade) PhytoKeys, 205: 147–189.
  • Ringelberg, J. Koenen, E., Iganci, J., de Queiroz, L., Murphy, D., Gaudeul, M., Bruneau, A., Luckow, M., Lewis, G. & Hughes, C. (2022) Phylogenomic analysis of 997 nuclear genes reveals the need for extensive generic re-delimitation in Caesalpinioideae (Leguminosae). PhytoKeys, 205: 3–58.

You are welcome to download and use the information found in this page, acknowledging its source.

This page should be cited as follows:

"Galapagos Species Database, Neltuma juliflora", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=24701. Accessed 31 May 2025.