mystery droplets

[Jamesasb]

I am off work today with the snow making the roof unsafe to work on, and i went into my large polytunnel to inspect things and take temperature readings when i noticed strange droplets on the tips of the leaflets of a mystery dwrf butia that i have.. they stood out because there is no liquid water in the polytunnel as its all frozen. anyway i tasted a few drops and they are like a really sweet sugar solution . tasted alot like agave nectar but it was still not thick solution. 

I think this is like a plant antifreeze. but why does only this particular plant leak so much of it?
none of the others from the same seed source have shown this. infacrt no other palmi have does this .

Shoud i collect the drops and see what temperature it freezes at?

[Palmsbro]

It would be interesting to see what temperature these droplets freeze at! If that temperature happens to be similar/the same temperature as the recorded hardiness of your particular Butia species, then you may be right about this being "palm antifreeze".

[frienduvafrond]

Some sort of insect secretion? Never seen that one.

[Jamesasb]

i put  the collected droplets in the freezer at -18C and it went into a white jelly, it didnot freeze at -7.5C which was as cold as it got outside here.

i think it was guttation ,possibly due to the palm sending carbohydrate into the leaves to prevent cold damage. these drops appeared after a night of -6C and didnt come from insects

[Jamesasb]

the palm is in good health still

 

[Steve Mac]

I think that you should drink some more and see if your cold tolerance increases,

or if your tongue will still stick to the front of the freezer. : )

[Jamesasb]

the palm is in good health still

Hahaha i  have been looking out for them but i think they are only produced when it gets below -6C of something like that