Cercis mexicana: Purple Pink Spring Flowers of Mexican Redbud

Summary: Cercis mexicana is a New World deciduous tree native to the Trans Pecos region of Texas and northeastern Mexico. Mexican Redbud produces showy pink flowers.

Mexican Redbud, Demonstration Garden, Superior, Pinal County, south central Arizona: William Herron, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cercis mexicana (pronounced as SER-sis meck-sih-KAY-nuh) is a perennial New World deciduous tree native to south central North America.

In the United States, Cercis mexicana is native to southwestern Texas, from Crockett and Val Verde counties westward across the Pecos River into the nine counties of the Trans-Pecos region, also known as Far West Texas: Brewster, Culberson, El Paso, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves and Terrell.

Cercis mexicana’s furthest southern range extends into eight states in Northeastern and North Central Mexico. Cercis mexicana is native to three states in northeastern Mexico: Coahuila, Nuevo Léon, Tamaulipas. Cercis mexicana has homelands in two states in north central Mexico: Querétaro, San Luis Potosí. Cercis mexicana is native to three states in east central Mexico: Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz.

Cercis mexicana is known commonly in English as Mexican Redbud.

As a dynamic discipline, the science of botany reviews and expands knowledge and understanding of the world's flora, or plant life. Reflective of ongoing botanical analyses, Mexican Redbud is classed either as a species or as a subspecies.

As a species, its scientific name is Cercis mexicana.

As a subspecies, its scientific name is Cercis canadensis var. mexicana to reflect its relationship as a geographic variety of Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis).

Thriving in hilly and mountainous habitats, Mexican Redbud is undaunted by the challenges of calcareous and rocky soils. As a native of the Chihuahuan Desert that monopolizes the Trans Pecos, stretches southward into Mexico across western and southeastern Coahuila, and slivers into northwestern Nuevo Léon, Mexican Redbud is tolerant of drought, heat and sandy soils.

Mexican Redbud easily adapts to USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 6B to 8B, encompassing average annual minimum temperatures ranging from minus 5 to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20.6 to minus 17.8 degrees Celsius) in Zone 6B to 15 to 20 degrees F (minus 9.4 to minus 6.7 degrees C) in Zone 8B.

In the United States, planting Cercis mexicana as an introduced tree may be expanded beyond the tree's native range to claim coast-to-coast homelands in southern states as well as farther north on the west coast into the Pacific Northwestern states of Oregon and Washington on the west coast and on the east coast as far as Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Mexican Redbud attains an equi-proportionate, maximum height and spread of 18 to 25 feet (5.4 to 7.2 meters). Its graceful silhouette traces globe, or rounded, shapes as well as vase shapes with branches angling sharply upward from the trunk and flaring outwardly at tips.

Flowers emerge prior to leaves as early spring harbingers in February. Showy purple-pink flowers profusely decorate the multi-trunked, low-branched tree.

Amidst the floral pastel palette, cordate (Latin: cor, “heart”), or heart-shaped, leaves unfurl as silvery green with undulate (Latin: undula, “small wave,” diminutive of unda, “wave”), or wave-like, edges and blunt tips. Leaves turn to showy yellow for their autumnal coloring.

Green seedpods ripen into brown or reddish purple.

As a species in Cercis, the global genus of redbud trees, Mexican Redbud serves as a host plant for Henry’s Elfin (Callophrys henrici) butterfly. Also known as Woodland Elfin, the North American native favors Mexican Redbuds as arboreal sites in the Trans Pecos for laying eggs and as the food source for emerging caterpillars.

As with all redbuds, Cercis mexicana produces edible flowers, foliage and seedpods.

The vibrant cuisine of northern Mexico features fried flowers and seedpods.

Mexican Redbud upholds the redbud tradition of attractiveness both in the wild and in cultivation. Its coloring, ethnobotany and silhouette endear it to human landscapes and attract wildlife.

In Far West Texas, also known as Trans Pecos, Mexican Redbud is the favorite hostplant for Henry's Elfin butterfly (Callophrys henrici): Megan McCarty, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Mexican Redbud, Demonstration Garden, Superior, Pinal County, south central Arizona: William Herron, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/wdherron/13433154914/

Henry's Elfin butterfly: Megan McCarty, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry%27s_Elfin,_Megan_McCarty98.jpg

For further information:

Gilman, Edward F., and Dennis G. Watson. "Cercis mexicana: Mexican Redbud." Fact Sheet ENH310. November 1993; reviewed May 2014. University of Florida IFAS Extension > Redbud > Southern Trees Fact Sheets > Leguminosae (Fabaceae)(taxonomic family).
Available @ http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/st151

Marriner, Derdriu. "Cercis siliquastrum: Deep Pink Spring Flowers of Judas or Judea Tree." Earth and Space News. Monday, April 27, 2015.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/04/cercis-siliquastrum-deep-pink-spring.html