The abundance of this tree, especially in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica, where it is prized for the shady relief it provides from the intense sun, coupled with its immensity, have made it a widely recognized species.

Under these conditions, massive, extended, horizontal limbs emerge low on the boles, forming giant, hemispherical, widely spreading crowns.

Supported by a long pedestal (4 cm (1.57 in)), each spherical white head – composed of about 50 individual flowers – sports thousands of thin, filamentous stamens as its major feature.

The blossoms themselves each consist of about 20 stamens and a single pistil, bound together at the base by a short, green, tubular corolla and an even shorter calyx, just 5 mm (0.197 in) long altogether.

In Manuel Antonio National Park near Quepos, Costa Rica, flowering lasts from late February to early April.

Fruit ripening lasts from March to April, as the green pods turn brown in the guanacaste crown and are slowly shed.

Guanacaste fruits are large (7–12 cm (2.8–4.7 in) diameter), glossy dark brown indehiscent and spirally organized pods, shaped like orbicular disks.

Their shape suggests the usual Mimosoideae fruit – a long, narrow, flattened pod – taken and wound around an axis perpendicular to its plane.

Guanacaste seed pods, however, are completely ignored by native fauna and they accumulate on the forest floor underneath parent trees.

[9] An insect pest, common to guanacaste trees of the Costa Rican Central Valley, produces spherical green galls of 1.5 cm (0.59 in) diameter on new shoots in February and March.

[citation needed] Tolerant of a wide range of rainfall levels, temperatures, and soil conditions, they can thrive in most low-elevation, tropical habitats.

Guanacaste trees are highly valued as ornamentals, and the shade they provide creates many an oasis on the searing and sun-baked plains in its Pacific slope habitat.

[13] The town of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in Nayarit (Mexico) derives its name from the fact that a cross used to stand there made of guanacaste wood.

Guanacaste is commonly used to feed all kind of livestock; its foliage, fruits, and seeds are relished by cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, and horses.

In Mexican folk medicine, the sap is thought to aid illnesses such as influenza and bronchitis, while the astringent properties of its green fruit are used for diarrhea.

The fruit and bark also contain tannins, which are useful for leather curing and soap manufacturing, while the sap can be used as a natural adhesive or substitute for glue, or chewed as a type of gum.