I have a bunch of free Albizia saman / Monkeypod seed pods. They are fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing trees that get a wide canopy. They are known as rain trees as the leaves fold together and close every night or when it rains/is dark-ish cloudy. I attached pictures of the parent tree, the pink and white puff flowers, and the seed pods. The last picture is one I have that's about 1.5 years old, around 10 ft tall and starting to branch.

They are cold hardy to zone 10a and, while in the same genus, do not have the invasive issues like Mimosa trees up north.

I'm curious how these would fair in a container ranch?

Adam, did you have to inoculate your roots with any rhizobia for nodulation to occur? I have one here in the ground now for a couple of years and I'd like it to nodulate for nitrogen fixation, but am not savvy on the whether the appropriate rhizobia exist in our soil naturally, or whether it has to be purchased from some sort of supply house...and then somehow get the process going? I guess I can dig around and look for nodules on the roots but I am just not sure of what I'm doing and which roots I would examine, etc. I've also got an Inga laurina (from Puerto Rico) and Inga sp. (possibly Inga spectabilis, purchased at a little mom-and-pop nursery on Krome Avenue as "Guama de Colombia") going into the ground and I want them all to fix nitrogen, but the same questions exist. Any info you (or anybody else) has on the subject would be a great help to me. And I'm glad to see people planting Samanea saman! To my mind it's one of the all-time great trees, and from what I've read (at least in Florida) it has generally received good wind-tolerance ratings, though I suppose that varies with the planting situation and cultural factors as well). I've seen it described as a scourge due to failure in certain hurricane zones (some South Pacific islands, for example), but apparently here it holds on much better.

First guy "Funk"-I think they'd be ok in a container, but not long term. I think they would get too lanky and root constrict themselves to decline. I've seen them in nurseries, container grown, and they have to be staked all the way up because they are too tall. When the trees grow this fast, they do a lot better in ground from a seedling. If you have the room for a 15 or 25 gal container, then I think it would do well for a while. I don't know if cutting off a leader repeatedly will force it to branch lower. If you want to try, you're more than welcome to though =)

Michael: I did not inoculate the roots of mine. I just went outside and dug around a bit, gently (an air spade would have been helpful!) and did not see any of the nodules. I didn't dig too deep though, so they may be there. I picked up a 15 gal Samanea saman for a neighbor of mine before and I definitely remember there being nodules on that tree when we unpotted it. I doubt that the grower did anything. In a nursery setting, with repotting and many species of different ages, I would thinks it's easier for the cross-contamination inoculation to occur.

They are beautiful trees, and when pruned so, can easily achieve that Serengeti / Acacia tortilis tree canopy look. I attached pics of trees from another neighbor a few houses down which look amazing. They were planted approx 15 years ago and sustained decent branch damage during Frances/Jeanne/Wilma, but they fared ok. Maybe old branch self-cleaning in summer thunderstorms is a better term !