Costa Rican Palm Society Meeting - Saturday October 31, 2009 10AM

[Jeff in St Pete]

The next meeting of the Asociación Costarricense de Palmeras (Costa Rican Palm Society) will be held at Marco Herrero's palm farm in the Central Valley. The meeting will take place on Saturday October 31, 2009 at 10AM. The Board of Directors will hold their first official meeting at 9AM, followed by the tour of Marco's farm at 10AM.

A little bit of history about Marco and the farm:

The farm (20 hectares) was started in 1980 when Marco returned to Costa Rica after studying abroad. Those first years he grew Dracaena masangeana and Dracaena marginata. The palm bug bit him in 1984 when he visited the Botanical Garden in Rio de Janeiro. Later, he started importing seeds from Pauline Sullivan and Inge Hoffman in the US and Dusan Balint in Indonesia. Importing became too tedious and it involved too much red tape so Marco looked for alternatives. He started making trips to the Southern region to Golfito and Wilson Botanical Garden (now called Las Cruces Biological Station) to collect seeds and in the process he became good friends with Robert Wilson. Robert attended Marco's wedding 21 years ago, and Marco and his family were visiting Robert at Las Cruces the day he passed away. Marco told me that he used to stay at the Wilson home and he would sit with Robert and hear his fascinating stories of collecting in Papua New Guinea and other places around the world, and of his friends Paul Allen, Hal Moore, Roberto Burle Marx, David Fairchild, John Popenoe and others.

Marco has approx 60 genera and over 150 species of palms growing at his farm. This is a great opportunity for our members to see what many palms look like when mature, and an opportunity to view some rare palms that are hardly ever seen in Costa Rica. This is a meeting not to be missed! I think this will be our best turnout yet. If anyone would like to join us, please send me a pm for directions.

Photos will be posted after the meeting.

[Jeff in St Pete]

We had a great turnout today at our meeting. We signed up 4 new members and we had a productive board meeting before the tour started.

The morning started out sunny and nice, but during the tour it turned cloudy and started to rain a little. The lighting for photos was not very good inside Marco's palm forest, so I apologize for some of the photos.

The group from Quepos/Manuel Antonio decided to rent a tourist van and driver for the day. It made more sense than all of us driving multiple cars to get there. The van left Quepos at 5:30AM this morning and it took 3.5 hours (with a couple quick stops for coffee and food) to get to Marco's farm.

At the entrance to Marco's palms

looking back the other way

[Jeff in St Pete]

Chambeyronia

[Jeff in St Pete]

Veitchia forest

[Jeff in St Pete]

Interesting new leaves

[Jeff in St Pete]

Reinhardtia simplex

[Jeff in St Pete]

Verschaffeltia splendida

Aristolochia

[Jeff in St Pete]

Walking through the palm forest

[Jeff in St Pete]

Palm gazing

Our host Marco and forum member Jose Maria

[Jeff in St Pete]

Dictyosperma furfuraceum

[Jeff in St Pete]

Roystonea oleracea - from seed collected in Brazil in the 80's

[Jeff in St Pete]

Licuala

[Jeff in St Pete]

Livistona?

[Jeff in St Pete]

Giant Philodendron

Another shot of the Roystonea oleracea with a person for scale

[Jeff in St Pete]

Croton the size of a tree

Cycads

[Jeff in St Pete]

Sabal mauritiiformis

S. mauritiiformis among the canopy

[Jeff in St Pete]

Dypsis pilulifera - Orange Crush. Unfortunately, no color right now.

[Jeff in St Pete]

[Jeff in St Pete]

[Jeff in St Pete]

Chamaedorea metallica - not commonly seen in Costa Rica.

[Jeff in St Pete]

I think this is Pinanga caesia

Nice blue-ish bamboo

[Jeff in St Pete]

Licuala peltata var. sumawongii

[Jeff in St Pete]

More sumawongii leaves

[Jeff in St Pete]

In front of the Corypha

[Jeff in St Pete]

More Corypha photos

[Jeff in St Pete]

Unfortunately the lighting was bad for my favorite part of Marco's farm

Areca vestiaria

[Jeff in St Pete]

More of Areca vestiaria Row

[Jeff in St Pete]

A nice Ti plant

Looking up at more Areca vestiaria

[Jeff in St Pete]

Through another forest of palms

Jose Maria in front of Caryota gigas

[Jeff in St Pete]

Very tall Dypsis pinnatifrons

I liked these giant ferns growing along the path. They were enormous!

[Jeff in St Pete]

More Areca vestiaria

On the tour

[Jeff in St Pete]

Coccothrinax crinita

Acoelorrhaphe wrightii

[Jeff in St Pete]

[Jeff in St Pete]

[Jeff in St Pete]

This one had me stumped. I think Marco said it was Attalea maripa.

What a great looking palm. I'm going to verify the id with him and then try and find some seeds.

[Jeff in St Pete]

Neoveitchia storckii

[Jeff in St Pete]

Hyophorbe indica

Phoenicophorium borsigianum

[Jeff in St Pete]

[Jeff in St Pete]

At the base of a huge Satakentia

I couldn't get a good shot of the crown.

[Jeff in St Pete]