PlantFiles: Arabian Frankincense
Boswellia sacra

I will say this plant is slow to grow in a pot, even an oversized one unless it has high humidity. Once in ground though, it grows real well... weird considering we have very low humidity here, single digits sometimes. I feel more people should grow this tree, and other species if you can locate them $$$... The leaves and flowers, not to mention form make it worth it

I've recently purchased a tree from Miniatree (through eBay) .

I have it on a timed, full-spectrum grow light with a heating pad for this upcoming winter and would like to get it to a decent size, maybe make a bonsai, and maybe try harvesting a little resin- I love the smell and it seems to do me good health-wise.

I've also purchased some seeds and will try my hand at the less-than-promising germination process.

I'm interesting in chatting with others about their experiences, so if you grow them, let me know:)
Thanks.

I've grown my Frankincense for a few years now, in a square container, just shy of 1 cubic foot. It has a thick trunk and roots (what few I can see) for such a sparse, squat shrub. New leaves begin lime green, deepening to an oak leaf green as they reach full size. Stems grow in fits and starts. Where the stems pause, the foliage appears tufted. As the trunk and branches age, layers of bark similar to onion skin split and peel away. (Think Paper Birch with fewer layers showing.) Even the oldest part of the trunk is green underneath this peeling bark.

I read it prefers an alkaline pH, so I mulched the potting mix surface with limestone gravel. I fertilize with a granular, slow release commercial product. I give it a spoonful of fireplace ashes a few times a year, too. My zone 6 winter is far too cold for Frankincense. I bring it into my sunroom well before the first frost. I'd say a safe minimum temperature is 40 degrees F / 5 degrees C. However, last winter mine survived a "heater incident" where the temperature dropped below freezing, perhaps more than once that week. I'm sure the fact there was no wind helped. The plant's normal response to stress is to drop its foliage, and it lost a lot of leaves. To prevent root rot, I rarely watered it until I saw new leaves.

It has recovered well this summer. It sure seems to like the humid summer here whether there are thunderstorms or not. I figure it is a desert plant and rarely give it any extra water. What moisture it does get drains away fairly quickly. I give it all the sunlight I can, summer and winter.

It flowered late last winter for the first time, but nothing developed into fruit or seeds.

I certainly haven't dared cut into my specimen to see if any incense oozes out. From time to time I've pulled off (mostly) dead leaves and sometimes a bit of white goo comes forth. There hasn't been enough to collect, so I can't say what it smells like.

I'm pretty sure my plant is a rooted cutting rather than seed-grown. I tried to take an air layer from one green stem during a pause in its growth. I used rooting hormone, sphagnum moss, wrapped in aluminum foil--the same method I had seen used on azaleas in Florida. The hormone caused no roots to sprout and the stem ultimately died. Try something else.

Plants and seeds are frequently available from a single vendor on a well-known internet auction site; infrequently from other online vendors. Be patient; reasonably priced plants do show up sooner or later.

Frankincense makes an interesting bonsai and conversation piece, if not the most attractive house plant.

I have searched a long time to find this plant, I was able to purchase 100 seeds, but frankincense is notoriously difficult to germinate, and I had no success. I have found a grower in Arizona that occasionally sells on Ebay, they are called http://www.miniatree.com they have wonderful plants, and I purchased two Boswellia's and they arrived in very healthy, bug free and bare root condition, they are growing and sending out new leaves in my Southwest bay window in my Sunny San Francisco flat. If you have any questions about these wonderful sacred plants, please email me. Thanks Wolf.

Similar to other plants in the genus, as well as Bursera. Grow in full sun, water when in active growth, keep dry when dormant. Protect from frost, likes heat. Expensive to purchase on the internet, yet very easily grown from cuttings.