The trees of Puerto Rico, and what they do in a storm.
20 species you will actually run into on this island - in a patio in Bayamón, along a beach in Rincón, over a driveway in Ponce. What each one is, where it came from, how it behaves in a hurricane, and what it needs from you. Tap any tree to open its info window - photographs of the tree and its leaf, flower or fruit are inside.
Why the island looks the way it does
Almost nothing you see from a Puerto Rican road is an untouched forest. The Taíno cleared and farmed the valleys long before contact, and the ceiba they left standing in council grounds is still the tree the island treats as sacred. Four centuries of sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cattle did the rest: by the 1940s Puerto Rico had been cut down to roughly six percent forest cover, one of the most deforested places in the hemisphere.
Then the economy moved off the land. As farms were abandoned through the second half of the twentieth century, the hills grew back - Puerto Rico is now more than half forested, one of the most-studied forest recoveries anywhere. But it did not grow back into what was cut. Fast, opportunistic introduced species got there first, and today the single most abundant tree in the island's regrown lowland forest is the African tulip, a West African ornamental that ecologists here classify as part of a "novel forest" - a functioning ecosystem made mostly of species that did not evolve together.
Government reforestation added its own layer. Mahogany went in along roads and public land at scale. Ornamentals came in from everywhere: the flamboyán from Madagascar, the almendro from Asia, casuarina from Australia, fan palms from Mexico. Fruit trees arrived with the colonial food trade - mango, breadfruit, tamarind, quenepa - and became fixtures of the Puerto Rican yard. Only some of what shades your house is from here.
That history is not trivia. It is the single best predictor of what your tree does in a hurricane. The natives and long-adapted species - ceiba, maga, roble blanco, sea grape, mangrove, royal palm - evolved on a hurricane coastline and are built to bend, shed, and recover. The fast-growing imports planted for shade and flowers - flamboyán, African tulip, casuarina, breadfruit - grow weak wood quickly and are the ones we cut off roofs after María, Fiona, and Ernesto.
The guide below is sorted by what matters operationally. Filter by palms, natives, fruit trees, invasives, or the species we consider storm-brittle, and open any tree for its identification cues, background, hurricane behavior, care notes, and permit flags.
20 species · Tap any tree to open its info window.
How to read the storm-risk rating
The 1-5 rating is operational, not botanical. It is our read on how the species behaves in Puerto Rico wind: how strong the wood is, how much sail the crown carries, how deep the roots hold, and how often we get called to cut one off something after a storm. A 5 is not a tree you have to remove - it is a tree that earns a real look before hurricane season.
Before you cut anything
Puerto Rico regulates tree cutting. Depending on the species, the site, and your municipality, removal or heavy pruning can require a DRNA permit - and mangroves, protected species, and coastal vegetation in the zona marítimo-terrestre carry the strictest rules and the real penalties. The permit notes in this guide are a heads-up, not legal advice. When in doubt, get the tree assessed before the saw comes out.
Not sure what you're looking at?
A licensed arborist comes to your property, identifies what you have, tells you honestly whether it needs work, and leaves you a written quote. Emergencies dispatch 24/7.