How to ID juvenile mules for the best form

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

There are fantastic looking mule palms like these:

And then there are the ones that... well... that look like mutts, sorta like a mongrel stray dog.

Is there a way to determine from the juveniles what the thing is going to look like? The second form definitely isn't so attractive in my book, and I've seen large mature ones like the second photo, they don't improve with age and trunk.

[KennyRE317]

I'm wondering this as well since I'm slowly starting to think where im going to put everything I'm wondering how thick the trunk is going to get on my mule so i know where I'm going to plant it.

[Stevetoad]

I think the second pic you posted is Gary's "elevator shaft". I thought his wasn't a mule though but another cross.

[Jim in Los Altos]

There are fantastic looking mule palms like these:

And then there are the ones that... well... that look like mutts, sorta like a mongrel stray dog.

Is there a way to determine from the juveniles what the thing is going to look like? The second form definitely isn't so attractive in my book, and I've seen large mature ones like the second photo, they don't improve with age and trunk.

Axel, Is that second picture a mule or a Butia X Parajubaea. I'm seeing so much Parajubaea-like fiber on the trunk that doesn't remind me of Syagrus romanzoffiana or Butia. It is a rather strange looking palm but I wouldn't be embarrassed to own it.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

There are fantastic looking mule palms like these:

And then there are the ones that... well... that look like mutts, sorta like a mongrel stray dog.

Is there a way to determine from the juveniles what the thing is going to look like? The second form definitely isn't so attractive in my book, and I've seen large mature ones like the second photo, they don't improve with age and trunk.

Axel, Is that second picture a mule or a Butia X Parajubaea. I'm seeing so much Parajubaea-like fiber on the trunk that doesn't remind me of Syagrus romanzoffiana or Butia. It is a rather strange looking palm but I wouldn't be embarrassed to own it.

This came from Dave's Garden, (See http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/470/) but I've also seen the giant mule in Edith's garden that looks like a butia on steroids. It's nice and unique but not like a nice dainty coconut.

[KennyRE317]

So what kind of trunk width should i expect from a mule, i have a triple that doesn't have a home yet

Edited July 15, 2013 by KennyRE317

[Gtlevine]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

[Stevetoad]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

How's about an updated pic?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

So a lot of these so called butagrus turn out to be F2's or something else. This is a nice palm in its own right, but if one is trying to landscape with mules, it would be nice to have some predictibility. I would be interested to see what yours looks like now.

[Jim in Los Altos]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

So a lot of these so called butagrus turn out to be F2's or something else. This is a nice palm in its own right, but if one is trying to landscape with mules, it would be nice to have some predictibility. I would be interested to see what yours looks like now.

Me too. I'd love to see a current photo of that palm and what that fibrous trunk turned into.

[dalmatiansoap]

x2

Edited July 15, 2013 by dalmatiansoap

[sarasota alex]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

So a lot of these so called butagrus turn out to be F2's or something else. This is a nice palm in its own right, but if one is trying to landscape with mules, it would be nice to have some predictibility. I would be interested to see what yours looks like now.

Actually F2's are pretty rare as most of the xButyagrus are sterile.

[tank]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

So a lot of these so called butagrus turn out to be F2's or something else. This is a nice palm in its own right, but if one is trying to landscape with mules, it would be nice to have some predictibility. I would be interested to see what yours looks like now.

Why would you infer that "a lot of these butagrus turn out to be F2's"?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

That second palm is in my garden. It is twice that size now, an enormous monster of a palm and very unique. It is an F2 butiagrus grown from seed taken from the Huntington Botanical Garden xButyagrus.

So a lot of these so called butagrus turn out to be F2's or something else. This is a nice palm in its own right, but if one is trying to landscape with mules, it would be nice to have some predictibility. I would be interested to see what yours looks like now.

Why would you infer that "a lot of these butagrus turn out to be F2's"?

I am not inferring anything, I am asking. Forgot the ? mark. So far, every time I've spotted a mongrel butiagrus, it turns out to not be a butiagrus. I was going on the notion that butiagrus is highly variable, quoting Jeoff Stein, so buyer beware, you don't know what you're gonna get. But now I am having some doubts, and wonder if butiagrus form is pretty stable and predictable.

[tank]

The point is that butiagrus are typically sterile, so as Alex said, getting a "confirmed" F2 is seemingly rare. There are mules that will produce viable seed, but the vast majority are sterile. Also, I would hope that would be getting your plant from someone who actually took the effort to breed one of these things with care, so that the chance of getting anything other than a Butia x Syagrus would be minimal. Hopefully you're not going to be purchasing a mule from someone that was collecting seed from under the huntington mule or from someone who was picking through a massive group of butias and found a couple that looked different and concluded that they must be a butiagrus.

That said, in my limited experience of only having done the hybridization on two occasions, the adult form of a butiagrus is variable and I did not notice any real indication in the young plants on how they would look as adults. The two main "forms" I've seen are the "strict" or more upright shuttlecock look and the more lax "coconut" look.

There are a ton of old threads on this topic, you should do some research and report back to us with your conclusions.

[tank]

WTF is a mongrel butiagrus anyway?

[KennyRE317]

To those that have seen a mature specimen size, what diameter trunk should be expect from my mule?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

WTF is a mongrel butiagrus anyway?

Must be the name I give to the "strict" or more upright shuttlecock look inherited from the butia, which I don't care for much, I want the lax, coconut look inherited from the queen. I basically just want a queen with pinnate leaves of a butia, that's basically the lax coconut look.

[gyuseppe]

is butiagrus f2

might also be butiagrus x ?

[tank]

WTF is a mongrel butiagrus anyway?

Must be the name I give to the "strict" or more upright shuttlecock look inherited from the butia, which I don't care for much, I want the lax, coconut look inherited from the queen. I basically just want a queen with pinnate leaves of a butia, that's basically the lax coconut look.

Like this one?

[tank]

To those that have seen a mature specimen size, what diameter trunk should be expect from my mule?

~24"

[edbrown_III]

The photo is a pot of seedlings taken in 2005--- 2 of them are Butia x S. coronata mules definitely -- I gave one to Faith and planted one. I photo graph the plant tonite. Stay tuned

Best regards

Ed

[Mark Heath]

Axel,

The best way to figure out what kind of mule you are gonna get is to buy a 15-20 gallon size. By that time it's traits will show through.

Lax fronds vs stiff upright fronds.

The only way i know of is to look at the leaflets when young and see if they are wide and thin, but that is not direct science.

If you want a certain type of look to your Mule then i would suggest spending a little dough and get a good sized one, that way you will know.

There is no short cut to save money that i would bet on!

I have thousands of Mules and I am not sure until the size i mentioned.

[ErikSJI]

Ok Axel. Pick one. Like everyone is saying it would be a crap shoot as a seedling determining what the palm will look like at a older age.

[KennyRE317]

To those that have seen a mature specimen size, what diameter trunk should be expect from my mule?

~24"

Crap, might have to put the mules somewhere else, or find a large size single somewhere

[edbrown_III]

Axel,

The best way to figure out what kind of mule you are gonna get is to buy a 15-20 gallon size. By that time it's traits will show through.

Lax fronds vs stiff upright fronds.

The only way i know of is to look at the leaflets when young and see if they are wide and thin, but that is not direct science.

If you want a certain type of look to your Mule then i would suggest spending a little dough and get a good sized one, that way you will know.

There is no short cut to save money that i would bet on!

I have thousands of Mules and I am not sure until the size i mentioned.

Some of them take after Mama in robustness and look pretty fat and Butia like. Theres one at the State College Jacksonville that has just enough mule characteristics to be mule but other wishe looks like a Butia --- Eric from Orlando has posted some of these before --- lots of variation.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Axel,

The best way to figure out what kind of mule you are gonna get is to buy a 15-20 gallon size. By that time it's traits will show through.

Lax fronds vs stiff upright fronds.

The only way i know of is to look at the leaflets when young and see if they are wide and thin, but that is not direct science.

If you want a certain type of look to your Mule then i would suggest spending a little dough and get a good sized one, that way you will know.

There is no short cut to save money that i would bet on!

I have thousands of Mules and I am not sure until the size i mentioned.

Some of them take after Mama in robustness and look pretty fat and Butia like. Theres one at the State College Jacksonville that has just enough mule characteristics to be mule but other wishe looks like a Butia --- Eric from Orlando has posted some of these before --- lots of variation.

Thanks for all your answers, this thread pretty much confirms it, and Ed's statement summarizes it in a nutshell - some take after Momma Butia, some take after Daddy Queen, no telling what you're gonna get unless the specimen has some size. That's why I was reluctant to mail order one from Erik, but I was very tempted.

[ErikSJI]

Axel as you have seen the photos of our larger ones ours are a pretty uniform and a 50/50 split so they are probably not what you are looking for.

[Stevetoad]

Axel as you have seen the photos of our larger ones ours are a pretty uniform and a 50/50 split so they are probably not what you are looking for.

Not exactly on topic but I wanted to brag that the mule I got from you has popped 2 leaves already and went into full dry inland sun without a hiccup! I'm not so sure I care what it ends up looking like.

[tank]

The photo is a pot of seedlings taken in 2005--- 2 of them are Butia x S. coronata mules definitely -- I gave one to Faith and planted one. I photo graph the plant tonite. Stay tuned

Best regards

Ed

Ed,

If you get a chance, I'm still interested in seeing a picture of your Butia x S. coronata. Thanks!

[WestCoastGal]

So what kind of trunk width should i expect from a mule, i have a triple that doesn't have a home yet

Kenny, the mule in photo 1 is ours; one of two mature ones we own. I measured the circumference of the larger of the two this a.m. And it was 78 inches, yes the 2 ft diameter is a good estimate. Both of these mature mules were container grown for maybe all but the last 3 years so not sure if that matters. Suspect it may primarily limit their height but that's just a guess on my part.

[edbrown_III]

The photo is a pot of seedlings taken in 2005--- 2 of them are Butia x S. coronata mules definitely -- I gave one to Faith and planted one. I photo graph the plant tonite. Stay tuned

Best regards

Ed

Ed,

If you get a chance, I'm still interested in seeing a picture of your Butia x S. coronata. Thanks!

Tank

good to hear from you hee are the photos 1st is Butia x coronata the second is a putatuve Butia x picophylla

Best regards

Ed

[tank]

Thanks Ed.

Both look great. Definitely different from a standard butiagrus, at least in these pictures. Do you have any idea of their cold tolerance? Has their growth rate been similar to a standard butiagrus?

Jason

[Cedric]

Still waiting for the updated picture of the hairy "mongrel" wondering if the leaves stayed so short compared to the massive trunk. It looks a bit like those plastic coconut trees they have in games aracades in older seedier shopping malls. Im sure in real life it looks a lot more Jurassic and interesting.

I posted a similaer post bout Foxylady, as there seem to be the same kind of differences in those hybrids as these, the attenuated crown with more upright leaves versus standard crown with horizontal to hanging leaves....no one commited to an answere on this. So Im assuming mail order is a gamble with these hybrid seedlings or juveniles so not something to spend too much cash on.

[Gtlevine]

Ill try to get a photo today.

[Gtlevine]

Here are 2 updated photos. It is very difficult to photograph since it is buried behind other trees and a big boulder. The palm is probabably 25 feet and two foot trunk minimum. It holds more leaves than you could possibly count and is very jurassic looking. Notice also that this palm has bright yellow petioles.

[KennyRE317]

wow ... that's an interesting mule. it's form is real similar to how my Butia capitata 'compacta' is but on steroids and less curved leaves. something like this would work in my garden since I don't have a lot of space and it almost goes straight up

[Gtlevine]

Speaking of Jurrasic Mules, this palm is the sibling of the beast above. It is absolutely enormous palm with more the traditional mule look to it. Trunk is beginning to rival Jubaea. I put a standard shovel for scale.

[dalmatiansoap]

WOW!

[Cedric]

They're fascinating palms those. Thanks for the pictures I know what a hassle it is taking pictures, definitely always something more urgent to do like a 5minute "shut eye".

I like them both, forgetting coconut for a moment there is something very Phoenix about them both literally (or is that literary) and figuratively which I like a lot. Those boulders are tremendous they add a lot to the palms looking less strange and more like an interesting new species.

Think if I was pushed to choose between them! Hmmm difficult but I prefer the hairy Triassic one, more hair, the leaves are neater fuller crown, less bad hair day going on and only cause I know Syagrus is in there and there are a load of scruffy syagrus this part of the world.

Now to find the intermediate form in a seedling take a hatchet to it and clone it and sell it to Axel in Santa Crutz. (: