Sabal questions

[sarasota alex]

Hello all. Thanks for having this great forum!

This is my first time posting here. Always been a fan of palms but just recently tried to get serious about learning the subject and made it a hobby. Basically still very new to this.

I collected 15 seeds from two large Sabals growing in front of the Sarasota County Courthouse.

14 of them germinated successfully.

I identified these palms as S. maritima based on the "Field guide to the palms of the Americas" (leaf shape, erect inflorecenses, fruit and trunk size) and based on the variety of pictures I've seen. I'm however skeptical about S. maritimas being common enough in cultivation for the county to plant them.

Three questions I have are:

1. Have I identified these correctly? (I will attach more photos with additional posts)

2. Given the close proximity of lots of S. palmettos (photos coming) how likely is it for these seedlings to be hybrids?

3. Is it time to re-pot? If it is, how should I do it not to damage the seedlings?

[sarasota alex]

Detailed view of the crown

[sarasota alex]

leaf details

[sarasota alex]

one of the large palms in question next to a row of S. palmettos on the right

[Kris]

Dear Alex

Though iam not a sabal expert,but i must congragulate u on your effort in germinating those seeds and the seedlings all look very healthy.Good work

Love,

Kris

[sarasota alex]

Thanks Kris!

[Alicehunter2000]

Bump up.......

Those indeed look like something other than your typical S. palmetto. I first I didn't think so........but compairing it to the "cabbage palms" on the left those things are pretty massive. Sabal Maritima might be correct, if they were S. causarum or S. domingus (sorry for the spellings) they would be smooth trunked and lighter color I believe. I'm no Sabal expert but others on here are.

BTW welcome to the board.......you will be hooked soon.

If you can get more seed from those trees I would be happy to trade you fresh Phoenix sylvestris seed for them.

Also, I think you can transplant those seedling to individual 1 gallon containers or tall pots. I have succesfully repotted at that size....just not too deep and be really careful with the little roots.

[sarasota alex]

Thanks Alicehunter!

I collected these back in February. When I went back to take these pictures last week, there were no fresh seeds around. Next time I'll see them around I'll gladly send you some.

[Alicehunter2000]

Thanks, I'm always on the lookout for stuff that is rare up here in the cold north part of the state, but might have a chance. You, on the other hand have a ton of stuff that you will be able to grow...........yes, zone envy.......a terrible byproduct of your soon to be palm disease

[sonoranfans]

Im gonna go out on a limb and say they are Sabal Domingensis, they are just huge, and have the same flower stalks. The size of the fruits might help in ID'in the palm. Domingensis will take the old there easily, not sure about maritima, some sources say its only good to 25F.

Edited July 20, 2009 by sonoranfans

[sarasota alex]

The fruits I had looked to be about 1.0-1.2 cm although I didn't measure them at the time. S. domingensis definitely seems to be more commonly available. What threw me off was that the "Field guide..." identified S. maritima as the only similar large Sabal with erect inflorecenses

I don't think cold tolerance, though, for any Sabal would be an issue within a few miles of the water in the Sarasota area. It only gets down to the low 30s once every year or so and usually rebounds to the 60s within a few hours and to the 70s within a few days. We're really in the 10a territory.

[sonoranfans]

The fruits I had looked to be about 1.0-1.2 cm although I didn't measure them at the time. S. domingensis definitely seems to be more commonly available. What threw me off was that the "Field guide..." identified S. maritima as the only similar large Sabal with erect inflorecenses

I don't think cold tolerance, though, for any Sabal would be an issue within a few miles of the water in the Sarasota area. It only gets down to the low 30s once every year or so and usually rebounds to the 60s within a few hours and to the 70s within a few days. We're really in the 10a territory.

Domengensis has fruits that size, and I also was thrown by a fairchild pic(?) showing erect inflorescences when mine werent erect. Sometimes these little indications are not very useful. The speed of growth of my palm and the fact it has taken 20F pretty much identify it as domingensis. It was called "blackburniana" at the nursery which is just another name for hispanolan palmetto(domingensis) according to floridata. Mine is a juvenile, 2nd year fruiting, 15-17,, fruits and is 18' wide in the crown, def not a palmetto. The fruits are so heavy on my sabal the stalks are wilting towards the ground.

[FRITO]

nice palm, welcome to the forums! I am a fan of Sabals!

my somewhat trained eye is telling me domengensis. maritima is more rare and has more blueish tones on the trunk leaf bases from photos ive seen before.

here is Fairchilds Sabal image directory: http://www.palmguide.org/images.php?family...amp;genus=Sabal

its definently not your 'run of the mill' Sabal palmetto. I have noticed Sabal palmettos vary their crown size planted next to eachother in the same enviroment. just genetic variances I guess.

[sarasota alex]

Thanks Sonoranfans! How likely do you think my seedlings are to be the hybrids with local palmettos? I am not sure if they flowered at the same time or not last year, but right now the S. palmettos have began to flower and these large ones have not.

[FRITO]

Tom

I alwys find these Sabal discussions interesting, especially when it comes to the 'blackburiana' and 'umbraculifera' suspect species.

Jack at Floridata has this on his site:

"I purchased my Sabal domingensis about 12 years ago from a local nursery under the name Sabal umbraculifera which, as it happens, is incorrect. But, according to the reference Hortus Third, that name is a synonym for Sabal blackburniana which is itself a poorly understood and a "suspect" species. However the name S. blackburniana is often misused to indicate still another species, Sabal bermudana which is another of my favorite sabals. I grow this one too and it seems to be even more cold resistant than S. domingensis. "

from this I gather: umbraculifera = blackburiana acording to Hortus Third. Blackburiana is incorrectly called bermudana apprarently.

Hes calling his palm Domingensis, but really is not sure what it is, I have seen his palms in person.

to make matters even more confusing, the picture he uses on the Floridata link for S. domengensis at the top taken at Bok towers, those palms are labeled Sabal BLACKBURNIANA at Bok Towers.

http://www.floridata.com/ref/S/saba_dom.cfm

[sarasota alex]

Thanks for the Welcome FRITO!

I like Sabals a lot also and always try to find something other then a regular S. palmetto

[sonoranfans]

Tom

I alwys find these Sabal discussions interesting, especially when it comes to the 'blackburiana' and 'umbraculifera' suspect species.

Jack at Floridata has this on his site:

"I purchased my Sabal domingensis about 12 years ago from a local nursery under the name Sabal umbraculifera which, as it happens, is incorrect. But, according to the reference Hortus Third, that name is a synonym for Sabal blackburniana which is itself a poorly understood and a "suspect" species. However the name S. blackburniana is often misused to indicate still another species, Sabal bermudana which is another of my favorite sabals. I grow this one too and it seems to be even more cold resistant than S. domingensis. "

from this I gather: umbraculifera = blackburiana acording to Hortus Third. Blackburiana is incorrectly called bermudana apprarently.

Hes calling his palm Domingensis, but really is not sure what it is, I have seen his palms in person.

to make matters even more confusing, the picture he uses on the Floridata link for S. domengensis at the top taken at Bok towers, those palms are labeled Sabal BLACKBURNIANA at Bok Towers.

http://www.floridata.com/ref/S/saba_dom.cfm

Yes, and then there is PACSOA who calls sabal blackburniana the "hispanolian palmetto" which is of course another name for "domingensis" or "umbracifera".

http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Sabal/blackburniana.html

I believe one of the more experienced sabal growers here said: "if its large and a fast grower, its domingensis, and if its large and slow grower it causiarum". the domengensis also have very muted ligules while causiarum have prominent ones. I have decided to just call mine domingensis since its large and fast(10 fronds a year). the petioles are 5-6' and the fronds are 5' or more, so its way to big to be S. palmetto. I find that my bermudana is definitely not of the same form as domingensis, the petioles are 1' shorter and 3x thinner with fronds only 2/3 size and less costpalmate(less folded).

Alex, hard to say about hybridization, but different flowering times suggests against it.

[Tala]

ha that was me on the quick / slow comp. I just read a terrific piece on the genus by Hodel, this appeared in a recent Cal. journal no less. And check this out - he actually used ligules to ID causiarum from domingensis! Just like we were discussing in one of those older threads; guess we are a bit smarter than we look ...

Alex - your courthouse palm could be domingensis, just recently I was out in the field checking some large maritima, some of the infl. were erect, some not. I will have to check seed source on them, most likely habitat so not we could use that to ID anything. But it interesting to speculate. If you can take a close pic showing the newest emerging leaves - that will tell us something.

bermudana is easy to ID upon flowering, the infl. stays in tight, inside the leaves, only other Sabal to do this pumos

[sonoranfans]

ha that was me on the quick / slow comp. I just read a terrific piece on the genus by Hodel, this appeared in a recent Cal. journal no less. And check this out - he actually used ligules to ID causiarum from domingensis! Just like we were discussing in one of those older threads; guess we are a bit smarter than we look ...

Alex - your courthouse palm could be domingensis, just recently I was out in the field checking some large maritima, some of the infl. were erect, some not. I will have to check seed source on them, most likely habitat so not we could use that to ID anything. But it interesting to speculate. If you can take a close pic showing the newest emerging leaves - that will tell us something.

bermudana is easy to ID upon flowering, the infl. stays in tight, inside the leaves, only other Sabal to do this pumos

Well Tala, I thought it was either you or Ken Johnson, somebody who knew more about sabals than I! I listened and learned, and my palm is fast so its domingensis. I also now have 2 small causiarum in containers that I got from socal. It shall be interesting to see how they do.

[iamjv]

Alex, any updates on the seedlings you were growing from that marvelous looking sabal???? Would enjoy hearing how they've grown for you and maybe see some pics...

[sarasota alex]

This was my very first post on this forum almost 9 years ago. Sadly this week I noticed that these two beautiful S. domingensis have been removed :(

[Palmsbro]

6 hours ago, sarasota alex said:

This was my very first post on this forum almost 9 years ago. Sadly this week I noticed that these two beautiful S. domingensis have been removed :(

Your seedlings?

[sarasota alex]

6 hours ago, Palmsbro said:

Your seedlings?

Nope

There was a stretch of time spanning several weeks in the summer of 2011 I think, when I was traveling for work and my family was overseas and most of what I had in pots died from neglect.

[Zeeth]

Do you know why the palm was removed? I noticed that a lot of the non-palmetto Sabals planted in public areas of Manatee and Sarasota have gotten Texas Palm Decline.

[Palmsbro]

20 minutes ago, Zeeth said:

Do you know why the palm was removed? I noticed that a lot of the non-palmetto Sabals planted in public areas of Manatee and Sarasota have gotten Texas Palm Decline.

 ...

Really?

Not good.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

3 hours ago, Palmsbro said:

 ...

Really?

Not good.

Yea, no kidding!  

[sarasota alex]

7 hours ago, Zeeth said:

Do you know why the palm was removed? I noticed that a lot of the non-palmetto Sabals planted in public areas of Manatee and Sarasota have gotten Texas Palm Decline.

No Keith, they were perfectly healthy when they fenced the area off to give the building a facelift. I guess they were in the way :(