(Spanish: “green wood”), any member of the genera Cercidium and Parkinsonia, of the pea family (Fabaceae), comprising a small group of trees and shrubs scattered through the arid regions of the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Venezuela. Three species of palo verde are native to the United States; two of them become treelike. Blue palo verde (C. floridum) is a bushy tree that grows up to 9 m (30 feet) high, found in desert areas of southern California, Arizona, and northwestern Mexico, including the Baja California peninsula. It is usually a short-trunked, intricately branched tree, with smooth, conspicuously green bark and minute leaves that fall after the rainy season. The bright-yellow flowers, borne in clusters, are followed by cylindrical, beanlike pods approximately 7.6 cm (3 inches) long. The blue palo verde is a characteristic woody plant along washes in the Colorado desert. Border palo verde (C. macrum), a Mexican tree, grows only as far north as southeastern Texas. It is readily distinguished from the blue palo verde by its flattened, podlike fruits. Mexican palo verde (Parkinsonia aculeata) occurs in southwestern Arizona and from Texas to Florida.