Chamaedorea hybrids

[kristof p]

are there any Chamaedorea hybrids in cultivation or in the wild? it would be great to make some Chamaedorea hybrids with C. radicalis as motherplant to give the hybrid a good frost tolerance.

is it possible to make Chamaedorea hybrids?

[Tampa Scott]

Hybridism can occur between related species. I have growing C.metallica, C.radicalis and C.seifrizii with the C.seifrizii being the only female plant. I have one leaf seedlings coming up around the female plant at this time.

[edbrown_III]

C. microspadix and C. radicalis hybridize pretty easy here in Jax. I believe the logic is that the subgenera of the variou Chaemdorea ( I cant recall the names) can inter breed-- but not with others outside of these.

I have C undulafolia in greenhouse 2 females and it sets seeds so this is probably a hybrid of some sort. This winter I plan to watch the flowering cycle more to see what hybrids are possble.

Best regards,

Ed

[avb]

There are a number of hybrids documented in Don Hodel's book on Chamaedorea. Some are well known and were done many years ago. I recently had a C. oblongata set seed with three males nearby, none of them C. oblongata. I'm hopeful they might be something interesting. I also have a plant grown from C. microspadix seed that is apparently an oblongata hybrid. I'm hoping to experiment in the near future with some hybridization since I have a number of different Chamaedorea available with both male and female plants. I would love to come up with a sun hardy, bluish, bifid-leafed, monster that would grow in Arizona.

[kristof p]

thanks for the information everyone.

i have a feeling that a few hybrids will be ok for my climate. C. radicalis and C. microspadix seem to be very happy and problemfree in my climate and one of my C. radicalis has some flowerspikes at the moment. next year i will start collecting other Chamaedorea's and plant them out in the greenhouse. i hope i can start making hybrids within a few years ....

[calyptrocalyx&licuala freck]

Hey Colin here's a good one for you....

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Hi Mike

Try not to do Hybrids, always try to keep the sub genus apart

Concentrating on pure species for the time being

regards

Colin

[Phil]

Kristof,

When anyone in a good growing area has a lot of Chamaedoreas around the garden, he's going to get hybridization whether he wants it or not. That's why Colin says to separate species. In the 70's when I got started, I just put in Chamaedoreas here and there. Wherever it looked good and was shady, in went a Chamaedorea. Guess what? Lots of seeds and lots of hybrids. An interesting one was Chamaedorea glaucifolia X klotskiana. Sorry, I don't have a picture. The well known "Irving Cantor" hybrid was between Cham costaricana and ?potulensis. In answer to "can I do it", absolutely. Unfortunately, some species don't take at all. For instance, you'd have difficulty crossing geonomiformis with costaricana. Have fun. You'll have some results.

Phil

[Tala]

my understanding w/ these is there are several sub-tribes, or I guess groups would be more correct, and the only way you can get hybrids accidental or otherwise is to have species of the same groupings planted together. For instance I don't think it is possible to cross metallica with say klotzschiana or similar. Does anyone know the specific groupings or terminology?

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Attached is a copy of Jason's (kamipalms)sub genus 2007 list, although a few may have changed since

The website is no longer active but hopefully mid next year it will be as he gets his new house in order.

This may be of assistance.

I do not plant sub genus together unless they have a different flowering time

regards

Colin

KAMIPALMS.htm

[Matt N- Dallas]

I bought four c. radicalis hybrid seedlings from Kevin Weaver last spring and one turned out to be beautifully variegated. The seed came from Huntington- the other parent is unknown.

[mjff]

Attached is a copy of Jason's (kamipalms)sub genus 2007 list, although a few may have changed since

The website is no longer active but hopefully mid next year it will be as he gets his new house in order.

This may be of assistance.

I do not plant sub genus together unless they have a different flowering time

regards

Colin

That would seem to answer the question, if only species from the same subgenera can hybridize, than you would be limited to crossing C. radicalis with C. microspadix as they are the only members of the sub genus Moreniella.

[merrill]

Hi,

Years ago someone posted that they had crossed oreophila [then monostachys] with radicalis or microspadix. Anyone know about this?

merrill

[PalmGuyWC]

Hi Merrill,

That was me, and I wrote an article for Principes on hybridizing Chamaedoreas. I can't find the back issue now, but I think it was back in the 80's There is a section in Don Hodel's book on hybrids. It starts on page 264. Prior to writing his book Don spent two days at my place taking notes and photographs. I didn't have names for my hybrids, so Don named them as he came across them.

In my opinion the best hybrid of the group was a cross with C. oreophila X C. radicalis. Don was excited about this cross because the two species come from different groups or tribes. I found that it could only be crossed using C. Oreophila as the female and they would not cross the other way. The few seeds that formed were so small that at first I thought they were dummies. The seeds would fit under your thumb nail and had to be kept moist and planted immediately because of their small size. They were planted in a thin layer of spagnum moss with soil underneeth. The small seedlings were very slow to grow at first, but as they grew 3 or 4 fronds they speeded up.

Unfortunately Don didn't publish a picture of this hybrid which he called "Douglas Delight." The resulting plants were superior to either of the parents and held many more fronds than the parents. I had about 7 of these hybrids, but my entire Chamaedorea collection was mostly wiped out by the great freeze in 1989. 3 of the Douglas Delight survived the freeze and I still have them. My low during the freeze was 14F. In subquent years the plants have been exposed to below freezing temps. many times with no damage, but with overhead lathe protection. They seem to be about as cold hardy as C. radicalis or C. microspadix.

An interesting aspect of this hybrid is that several flower inflorescenses are produced at each node as does C. oreophila, both male and female plants. The plants appear to be self sterile.

I did many other hybrids and I crossed C. radicalis with C. microspadix, but the the resulting plants were dissapointing. They were all single stemed and looked more like a C. microspadix. I was trying to get a multi-stemed plant that had the heavy texture of C. radicalis. In later years I observed what appeared to be a multi-stemed C. radicalis hybrid growing at Fairchild Gardens. I don't know the history of the plant, and unfortunately it was destroyed by hurricane Andrew.

Dick

[PalmGuyWC]

While I'm in a writing mood.....the real fun wilth Chamaedorea hybridizing was wilth the Eleuththropetalum group, which included C. Metallica, Ernesti-augusti, Sartorii, Stolonifera, and more recently added to the group by Hodel, C. Rhizomatosa. I will eliminate C. metallica from the group, because it would never cross with anything, but I tried and tried. I was trying for a multi-stemed plant with the heavy texture and metalic color of C. metallica. I tried the cross both ways, but the only "seeds" (fruit) that would set were on C. Stolonifera, and nothing on C. Metallica. The hybrid fruit looked normal, but they all turned out to be hollow with some fluid inside. I think I found an embryo in a few of the seeds, but no food to feed them. (I still wonder if the embryos had been grown in a tissue culture if I could have gotten my elusive C. metallica hybrid).

The other Eleuththropetalums readily crossed with each other. The cross with C. Sartorii and C. Ernesti-augusti developed a robust plant that looked like a split fronded Ernesti-augusti with wide blades. The cross with C. Stolonifera and Ernesti-augusti and Satorii resulted in a smaller plant with the characteristics of the parents. I managed a couple of F2 back crosses and ended up with a very minature looking C. Ernesti-Augusti.

At one time the only C Stoloniferas available were from two different clones and they were both females. Finally David Best from Orlando found a population of C. Stolonifera in Mexico and from his seeds came some male plants. It was thought at one time that C. Stolonifera was extent. I finally obtained a male plant, but its pollen production was scant and I was never able to use C. Stolonifera pollen.

My hybridization experiments came to an end with the big freeze, as I lost 95% of my Chamaedoreas. It had taken me years to build my Chamaedorea collection, and I was so disgusted with my loss, that I switched to growing Rhapis which are much more cold hardy. I had a greenhouse at the time, but I was away on a trip when the big freeze started. All of my tropicals were in the greenhouse, but the pipes froze and my greenhouse heater kicked off. I lost about 50 orchids and all of my tropical palms. I lost interest in plants for about two years.

Dick

[Kris]

Any visuals of the varities spoken above_Gentlemen

thanks & love,

Kris

[tank]

Is the "trunking" or "tree-form" radicalis actually a hybrid?

Does someone have a pick of a radicalis x microspadix?

Thanks!

[merrill]

Responding to Dick in Post #14: We can probably get someone to post "Douglas Delight," Can you email [or even snail mail if need be] one of us the photo? There should be general interest!

QUOTING DICK:

I crossed C. radicalis with C. microspadix, but the the resulting plants were disappointing. They were all single stemmed and looked more like a C. microspadix. I was trying to get a multi-stemmed plant that had the heavy texture of C. radicalis.

END QUOTE

Hi, Dick:

My Experience w/ C. radicalis crossed with C. microspadix was identical w/ Dicks, with one odd exception: The C. radicalis X C. microspadix has a very heavy stoloniferous stem, which took many years [40 or so] to reach about 7 inches length on all four stems. Oddly, I haven't seen this on either microspadix or radicalis themselves!

Best Wishes,

merrill

[PalmGuyWC]

Merrill, Kris,

I just bumped "Dick Douglas Garden" to the top of Travel Logs. There is a picture of the Cham. hybrid, "Douglas Delight" on page one. Of the 3 I have that is the only one I have planted in the garden, and it's grown since that picture was taken. The plant pictured is a female and the two others in containers are a male and a female. They flower throughout the year and sometimes set a few seeds but I don't know who the daddy is, but most likely C. Radicalis.

Dick

[Kris]

Dear Dick

Thanks for the information...

love,

Kris

[freakypalmguy]

Here is the Douglas Delight

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt, thanks for posting the picture of "Douglas Delight."

While on the subject, some of you young guys that have C. Oreophila ought to try crossing it with C. radicalis. The female flowers remain receptive for several days and all you have to do is brush C. radicalis pollen onto the female flowers. I repeated this process for several days. I found they were more likely to set seeds in the spring, rather than later on in the summer. I think the summer heat kills the pollen.

C. Oreophila alone is a nice looking single trunked palm, and resembles C. elegans, but it has a thicker trunk with tiny white specks. They don't readily pollinate, so it's best to cut off a male inflorescence and press it into the small female flowers. The male and female flowers are attractive and they hold their bright orange seeds for quite a while. The male flowers turn a bright yellow when dropping pollen and the female inflorescences turns white. There are some pictures of C. Oreophila in Hodel's book on page 265.

Dick

[mnorell]

Dick--

Did your three hybrid freeze-survivors defoliate or keep their appearance during the 14F event, and were all of them in similar circumstances during the freeze? I'm wondering whether there was some strong variation amongst the progeny and if your survivors may have had exceptional vigor and cold-resistance, or just a more favored position during the freeze. Also how different morphologically are the individual resulting plants? I have one nice-sized oreophila (in a container) and many in-ground, fruiting radicalis here, but not sure of the sex of the oreophila. Maybe I'll make an attempt in the spring if it turns out to be a female, or try to find a female for the purpose. I really do like the look of the oreophila (and the photo of your hybrid) and think it would be a lot of fun to experiment with crossing them.

[PalmGuyWC]

Michael,

It's been so long ago, that I can't remember the exact location of the hybrids, but I think they were all growing in the same location under lath. I remember they were all affected by the freeze but not to what degree. Some may have had a more favored location than others. I'm sure I could have saved all of them if they had been moved to a more favorable location, but I had no idea it was going to get so cold. 1989 was the freeze of the century here in N. Calif and it lasted for two weeks. Where pipes burst, I had icicles as large as my leg.

If you have Don's Chamadorea book, there are pictures of male C. oreophila flowers on page 265. They hang down like tassels while the female inflrorescences are erect. Don't expose your C. oreophila to 25F or below or it could mean death.

Dick

[Brian Bruning]

I'm looking for C. "Douglass Delight" and for C. seifrizii x microspadix.  I'll trade or pay. 

I have C. radicalis, C. radicalis x microspadix, C. radicalis x  C. Irving Cantor (pochulensis x graminifolia).  The single trunked nature of C. radicalis seems dominant but F2s may show the multi-trunking characteristic.