Trunked Sabal minor in SE NC?

[Joe NC]

This palm had caught my eyes 6 or 7 years ago when I was stumbled across it in the forest along the Cape Fear River. It drew my attention because of it's large size (fronds taller than I could reach over my head, so a bit bigger than 8ft). I went back to the same spot in the woods last week and found this palm again. I was hoping to find seeds on this beast, but all the current and old flower stalks seem to dry out and abort before flowering. Now knowing much more about palms and their identification, a few things really stuck out to me this time. Besides being huge, this palm and the group of 4 other smaller palms that were around it all were located up on a sandy well drained small "hill" under oaks. It was not the type of place that I would expect to see a group of Sabal minors. I had my cell phone and snapped a couple of terrible pictures.

Palm #1 in the picture is the largest one that caught my eye. When I started to move in closer, I realized that the palm labeled #2 in the photo is strongly costapalmate and probably a wild Sabal palmetto.

A close up of palm #2 shows a long costa and a strongly costapalmate leaf.

This area is within 10 miles and bird poop range of the northern most stand of wild Sabal pametto on Bald Head island, as well as having many many transplanted landscape S. palmetto within the same distance. This made me wonder if the large palm that caught my eye was a rogue forest S. Palmetto, as it did have a small above ground trunk forming. I made my way to the palm to check it out.

Once I got to the large palm in question, it was clear it was not a rogue S. palmetto, but it looked different compared to the other local S. minors I am used to seeing. The leaves were more folded and costapalmate, less deeply divided, and it did have a small "trunk" forming.

I put my 1L bottle (~12") of water for scale in the crown of the plant, and there is at least 12 inches of "trunk" below it emerging from the ground.

You can also see green flower stalks emerging from between the un-split leaf bases. These flower stalks extended at least 3' beyond the tips of the leaves, but were dried out and un-branched. I looked all all of the previous years dried flowed stalks that were around this plant and they all also appeared to never fully develop.

The costa extends very deep into the leaf on this palm. I outlined it in red to make it easier to see in this picture.

Is such a long costa within the normal range of variation for a Sabal minor of this size? The next day, I made a point to check out and photograph the costa on a Rocky Point NC wild type S Minor, which are growing wild by the thousands in the much wetter forest around 30 miles away from the large palm in question.

I again outlined the costa in red. This plant is much smaller ~3ft, but the leaf is much more deeply divided and the costa barely makes it into the leaf.

As somewhat of a plant nerd, I thought this was all very interesting. Natural variation in a species? Does the proportion of the costa change when the leaf becomes that large? Its this a F1 or F2 recent hybrid, or did some ancient S. palmetto DNA sneak into the S. minor population that is really close to the northern native range extent of S. Palmetto. Is this of completley no interest?

Thoughts?

[Ken Johnson]

Nice study in any case. Looks like a major minor.

[Brad Mondel]

Yes, Sabal Minor gets this large after many years. Here is a link to Sabal Minors in N.C: http://www.garysnursery.com/BigMinors.html

Scroll to the bottom to see links for more minors in N.C.

Edited August 28, 2015 by ArchAngeL01

[Xerarch]

Yes, Sabal Minor gets this large after many years. Here is a link to Sabal Minors in N.C: http://www.garysnursery.com/BigMinors.html

Scroll to the bottom to see links for more minors in N.C.

Those appear quite costa palmate, must be quite a bit of variation among Sabal minor, as noted in original post. I've seen others that are hardly costa palmate at all.

[Joe NC]

Yes, Sabal Minor gets this large after many years. Here is a link to Sabal Minors in N.C: http://www.garysnursery.com/BigMinors.html

Scroll to the bottom to see links for more minors in N.C.

The huge one from Brunswick Co. that he has a photo of in one of the other links looks just like the one I stumbled across. It was interesting to see how costapalmate the "giant" eastern NC ones appear.

[Tropicdoc]

here is a big trunking S. minor on the campus of LSU

[Xerarch]

Wow

[Josh-O]

that things a dinosaur