The ultimate oddball Sabal Thread

[Sabal Steve]

Good points.

[palm tree man]

Where did everyone find their Sabal Palmetto "Lisa"? I have admired them for years but couldn't find a good source.

[Alicehunter2000]

I got mine from a friend that knows another friend that collected seeds in St. Pete......it was a gift and I hope, hope, hope that it will come true to form.

[palm tree man]

I do too man; let me know if it does. If he has anymore give him my contact info and I would like to buy a few from him when they are available. Oh, on another note, guys I have done some research on Louisiana and it unlike minor develops what the site called a pseudo crownshaft structure above ground early on as a young palm. Its crown is just above ground at an early age and I did agree with the site that I have never seen a true sabal minor with exposed trunk unless it was a hybrid or the trunk had been dug out or exposed by nature or by man.

[palm tree man]

Here is a picture of a young sabal birmingham beginning to trunk grown from verified seed taken from the original source plant.

Edited February 27, 2014 by palm tree man

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Here is a picture of a young sabal birmingham beginning to trunk grown from verified seed taken from the original source plant.

I am going on a limb here, but I bet sabal birmingham is the same as sabal riverside. Could this be true since the original s. Birmingham was grown from California sabal seed?

[Sabal Steve]

Here is a picture of a young sabal birmingham beginning to trunk grown from verified seed taken from the original source plant.

I am going on a limb here, but I bet sabal birmingham is the same as sabal riverside. Could this be true since the original s. Birmingham was grown from California sabal seed?

Most reports report S. riverside as quite fast, while the true S. birminghams are incredibly slow. If I had to posit a guess, I would say perhaps S. mexicana and minor. You have an interesting point with the California connection - I wonder how long ago Sabals were introduced into California.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Here is a picture of a young sabal birmingham beginning to trunk grown from verified seed taken from the original source plant.

I am going on a limb here, but I bet sabal birmingham is the same as sabal riverside. Could this be true since the original s. Birmingham was grown from California sabal seed?

Most reports report S. riverside as quite fast, while the true S. birminghams are incredibly slow. If I had to posit a guess, I would say perhaps S. mexicana and minor. You have an interesting point with the California connection - I wonder how long ago Sabals were introduced into California.

I sorta forgot about the snails pace of birmingham, that does rule out it being an offspring of riverside. But what California sabal in the old days could possibly be the parent? A lot of sabal riverside seeds headed East in the old days. The choices seem to be minor, palmetto, bermudana and riverside.

[palm tree man]

It is an odd palm and much slower than Riverside from all source information that I have gathered over the years. I originally stayed away from it because i can grow other sabal but it has interested me a great deal in recent years. There was a great deal of discussion as to whether it was Riverside since it came from California and it is very similar but it is also much slower growing which threw me for a loop. I suspect that it is a hybrid with sabal minor just from the mixed morphological traits. Brazoria is somewhat like it as well; it was even said to be Louisiana which would be the last possibility on the list to me. What do you guys think? You had allot of great points Alex. I am really not sure myself.

[palm tree man]

I had a chart somewhere with the differences between seedling developement between Mexicana, Minor, Palmetto, and a few more. I will see if I can find it and try to post it as well.

[Bigfish]

That Sabal minor does not have to be S. minor var. Louisiana, just because it has a short trunk. There are plenty of Sabal minor growing in NC that have trunks that size and bigger.

[palm tree man]

I think that Sabal Minor have been hybridizing with native palmetto populations for many years; there just has not been an effort for more DNA testing because we have lumped them all together. The sabal minor in coastal Georgia are smaller and never have a trunk. Sabal minor Louisiana which I feel is probably an old hybrid like Brazoria has proven to be when it was tested. I have seen the giant minor of NC and they are definitely different then the normal variety; they deserve their own classification honestly. We are giving Butia Capitata different species status and accepting classifications do to slight differences "to me they are more than slight" so all the forms of Sabal Minor also deserve the same treatment. They have different leaf structures and levels of costalpalmateness, leaf color, and the above ground trunk characteristic. Sabal minor is difficult to transplant and move do to what many people mistake as a "tubor" structure which is in fact an underground trunk but when unearthed the underground trunks do not resemble the trunks of Brazonia or even Louisiana. The Cape Hatteras Giant sabal minor is huge compared to our common form but is still much smaller than Birmingham and Brazoria. They both have a larger canopy spread than a common Sabal Palmetto.

[palm tree man]

Here is a picture of Sabal Mexicana and Sabal minor which shows the leaf structure. You can clearly see the difference in the midrib though some sabal minor are even more palmate.

Edited March 7, 2014 by palm tree man

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Just wanted folks to know that Plants Delights Nursery in North Carolina has some real nice selection of unusual sabals, I got my order today, and the plants were fabulous, super healthy!

[Sabal Steve]

http://www.plantdelights.com/Sabal-x-brazoriensis-for-sale/Buy-Brazoria-Palmetto-Palm/

Thoughts on a -15F trunked palm?

"Sabal x brazoriensis is a rare palm from Brazoria County, Texas, has been identified by DNA in 2011 as an ancient hybrid between Sabal palmetto (above ground trunk) and Sabal minor (below ground trunk). Sabal 'Brazoria' is the hardiest of the trunked sabal palms, and should reach 20' tall with maturity. We have reports from Arkansas that these have sailed through a -15F winter. The giant, green, fan-shaped leaves are typical sabal foliage, but the growth rate in our trials has been twice that of Sabal minor. Our offerings are two to three-year-old seedlings. Because of the confusion with the name, Sabal x texensis, which is an old name for the less hardy Sabal mexicana, a new name of Sabal x brazoriensis was published for this plant in 2011".

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Picture 25.png

http://www.plantdelights.com/Sabal-x-brazoriensis-for-sale/Buy-Brazoria-Palmetto-Palm/

Thoughts on a -15F trunked palm?

"Sabal x brazoriensis is a rare palm from Brazoria County, Texas, has been identified by DNA in 2011 as an ancient hybrid between Sabal palmetto (above ground trunk) and Sabal minor (below ground trunk). Sabal 'Brazoria' is the hardiest of the trunked sabal palms, and should reach 20' tall with maturity. We have reports from Arkansas that these have sailed through a -15F winter. The giant, green, fan-shaped leaves are typical sabal foliage, but the growth rate in our trials has been twice that of Sabal minor. Our offerings are two to three-year-old seedlings. Because of the confusion with the name, Sabal x texensis, which is an old name for the less hardy Sabal mexicana, a new name of Sabal x brazoriensis was published for this plant in 2011".

That was not a 3 year old seedling I got, the thing I got was pretty small. But this is one I ordered, not because it's hardy to -15F, but because it's a cool sabal to grow and I wanted to round out my sabal minor collection. It's totally worth growing, not to mention it looks great.

But if you live in a cold climate, well, then this might be of interest to you:

[palm tree man]

Brazoria are tough and I sincerely believe that they will eventually become very popular among collectors in years to come. It has been reported that they hybridized possibly 1,000 years ago or even before any man inhabited the region. Many recognized species of domestic animal such as dog were originally two or more different species that were "mixed" in order to obtain certain traits. I try to always keep these facts in mind in order to be open minded to speciation. I have posted this before on my own thread but what makes them unique is that they have a self sustaining population that is totally isolated from other species. They are very aggressive and very durable by nature and will spread "slowly not like a weed, but like a dominate plant". In time there range will encompass a much wider area, we are witnessing the adaptation of a species in order to survive and thrive in a land that is very comfortable for sub-tropical plants 95% of the time but it has adapted and hybridized for the other 5% making it better and stronger. Sabal are so underestimated; they always seem to change and find a way. I will also add that Brazoria is not a hybrid between Mexicana and minor as once thought. It shares more DNA with Palmetto than Mexicana. Minor surprisingly seems to come in second but a distant second in genetic material. There is an alternate theory that states it is an ancient species of sabal that has been isolated through time and left behind. A relic of ancient days; not unlike some other isolated populations of other species that have been rediscovered. Food for thought anyway. Have an awesome weekend guys!

[palm tree man]

Nice pics Axel, I shall give you a point my man! Sorry meant to post this on my other post!

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Brazoria are tough and I sincerely believe that they will eventually become very popular among collectors in years to come. It has been reported that they hybridized possibly 1,000 years ago or even before any man inhabited the region. Many recognized species of domestic animal such as dog were originally two or more different species that were "mixed" in order to obtain certain traits. I try to always keep these facts in mind in order to be open minded to speciation. I have posted this before on my own thread but what makes them unique is that they have a self sustaining population that is totally isolated from other species. They are very aggressive and very durable by nature and will spread "slowly not like a weed, but like a dominate plant". In time there range will encompass a much wider area, we are witnessing the adaptation of a species in order to survive and thrive in a land that is very comfortable for sub-tropical plants 95% of the time but it has adapted and hybridized for the other 5% making it better and stronger. Sabal are so underestimated; they always seem to change and find a way. I will also add that Brazoria is not a hybrid between Mexicana and minor as once thought. It shares more DNA with Palmetto than Mexicana. Minor surprisingly seems to come in second but a distant second in genetic material. There is an alternate theory that states it is an ancient species of sabal that has been isolated through time and left behind. A relic of ancient days; not unlike some other isolated populations of other species that have been rediscovered. Food for thought anyway. Have an awesome weekend guys!

Several of the sabals from more tropical origins have amazing hardiness. The theory is that these sabals were pushed south during the last ice age and survived down there, but originally covered a lot of North America. Sabal as a whole has a lot of great genetics, so the brazoria story doesn't surprise me at all.

Now all we need is to do some selection to get a sabal that's as blue as a bismarckia.

[palm tree man]

I agree. I am going to post my Epcot pics of their Bismarkia this weekend. Man it is totally breathtaking. My wife took the camera from me, I took so many pics. I was like a kid in a candy store! lol I have seen some pretty good Urensa; they are tough as nails. I guess now we need to use the power of selection to pic the toughest most silver specimen to procreate!

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I agree. I am going to post my Epcot pics of their Bismarkia this weekend. Man it is totally breathtaking. My wife took the camera from me, I took so many pics. I was like a kid in a candy store! lol I have seen some pretty good Urensa; they are tough as nails. I guess now we need to use the power of selection to pic the toughest most silver specimen to procreate!

Like this one?

Or this one?

Or this giant in the Central Valley of California:

[palm tree man]

Me like! Sorry I was forced in a shock induced evolutionary degression when I saw the grandness of that Sabal. Yeah man that would be the one that we need!

[redbeard917]

Here's an oddball Sabal. Unlike others in this thread, it's not odd because of its classification, because it's a regular Sabal palmetto, but because of how it grew. From Wacissa River, FL.

[palm tree man]

That is a beautiful thing, a bonsai sabal palmetto. I would love to keep it on my desk at work. You won a point for truly entertaining me. Sir, that is one very original picture. Well done man. Very well done. Sabal will survive...............regardless of the form or circumstance. Very well proven point. Congratulations on a job well done.

[palm tree man]

All I can really say is "feed me more pics of oddball sabals".

[tjwalters]

Appears to be a struggling S. minor that has had most of its subterranean trunk exposed through erosion.

[palm tree man]

At closer inspection, I would agree. There does appear to be allot of erosion in that area from flood water, I would think anyway. It is really cool though and looks like a bonsai palm.

[JasonD]

From the article Axel posted, there is yet to be definitive proof of brazoriensis being a hybrid. Is there another more current article?

Here's a more recent article: http://www.mapress.com/phytotaxa/content/2011/f/p00027p025f.pdf

[palm tree man]

A DNA test has been conducted on Sabal Barzoria which has proven that it has the least in common with Sabal Mexicana genetically and shares more in common with Sabal Palmetto and then Sabal Minor which was a huge surprise judging from its appearance. It has been considered as to whether it is a hybrid or whether it is an ancient relic population of Sabal, but many authorities also feel that many of the trunking minors especially Louisiana should be evaluated on a genetic level and possibly given separate species status. We face this conundrum often in the palm world. Look at Acrocomia for example; all the separate species have been clumped together and many feel they should not have been. There are other examples as well. The article that Jason has posted is excellent and really shocked me when I read it. I had always been told it was a hybrid between Mexicana and Minor. There is also some discussion that like in the case of Sabal Lisa that Sabal Palmetto adapts and mutates and that many of these odd balls that keep popping up could be Sabal Palmetto mutations. There are many different theories on the subject though and until a study is conducted on the different forms of what we are calling minor it may never be totally clear.

Edited March 11, 2014 by palm tree man

[jfrye01@live.com]

Old thread, my apologies, but I'm picking up a couple small Sabal birmingham in OKC tomorrow, give me a few years and I'll let you know how they handle zone 7a...(By a few years, I mean a few decades!!)

[sarasota alex]

I missed a Sabal thread!

I hate missing Sabal threads!

[NorthFlpalmguy]

Speaking of Sabal oddities, what about the double headed versions? There was a location nearby (purchased by the State so they are protected now) where double headed Sabals were common (as in 1:1,000 common). It was an area along the coastline that's heavily populated but I have not seen another area similar to this where the mutation was as common.

[sarasota alex]

A DNA test has been conducted on Sabal Barzoria which has proven that it has the least in common with Sabal Mexicana genetically and shares more in common with Sabal Palmetto and then Sabal Minor which was a huge surprise judging from its appearance. It has been considered as to whether it is a hybrid or whether it is an ancient relic population of Sabal, but many authorities also feel that many of the trunking minors especially Louisiana should be evaluated on a genetic level and possibly given separate species status. We face this conundrum often in the palm world. Look at Acrocomia for example; all the separate species have been clumped together and many feel they should not have been. There are other examples as well. The article that Jason has posted is excellent and really shocked me when I read it. I had always been told it was a hybrid between Mexicana and Minor. There is also some discussion that like in the case of Sabal Lisa that Sabal Palmetto adapts and mutates and that many of these odd balls that keep popping up could be Sabal Palmetto mutations. There are many different theories on the subject though and until a study is conducted on the different forms of what we are calling minor it may never be totally clear.

The study that established Sabal × brazoriensis as a valid nothospecies only looked at 3 Sabal species - S. minor, S. palmetto and S. mexicana. Out of the three it was established that S. minor and S. palmetto are much more likely to be the parents of this ancient hybrid then S. mexicana. For that reason they were identified as parents. A bigger study would need to be done involving more species of Sabal to establish the actual lineage. It could be a S. minor × S. maritima for all we know. No one has really checked. For now though - S. minor × S. palmetto is considered the most likely combination.

I also have to ask who the "many authorities" are who think that Sabal minor "Louisiana" might be a separate species or even a variety. Scott Zona found no genetic difference between the Louisiana and other populations of Sabal minor and attributed the trunking habit to environmental differences. I don't remember seeing any study since then (or even anything scientific before) that would doubt that.

[sarasota alex]

I think that Sabal Minor have been hybridizing with native palmetto populations for many years; there just has not been an effort for more DNA testing because we have lumped them all together. The sabal minor in coastal Georgia are smaller and never have a trunk. Sabal minor Louisiana which I feel is probably an old hybrid like Brazoria has proven to be when it was tested. I have seen the giant minor of NC and they are definitely different then the normal variety; they deserve their own classification honestly. We are giving Butia Capitata different species status and accepting classifications do to slight differences "to me they are more than slight" so all the forms of Sabal Minor also deserve the same treatment. They have different leaf structures and levels of costalpalmateness, leaf color, and the above ground trunk characteristic. Sabal minor is difficult to transplant and move do to what many people mistake as a "tubor" structure which is in fact an underground trunk but when unearthed the underground trunks do not resemble the trunks of Brazonia or even Louisiana. The Cape Hatteras Giant sabal minor is huge compared to our common form but is still much smaller than Birmingham and Brazoria. They both have a larger canopy spread than a common Sabal Palmetto.

There is a common belief that Sabals hybridize easily. They do not. In fact Sabal hybrids are extremely rare. There are many places where as many as 3 (possibly 4) distinct species of Sabals are found growing in the same forest or prairie, yet no hybrids are found. The hybridization of Brazoria palmettos dates back thousands of years for example. That's how rare these hybrids are. So hybridization does occur, but it's extremely uncommon and some of the possible cultivated Sabal hybrids, like Riverside or Birmingham - if truly hybrids are probably descendants from those rare crossing events.

Butia capitata is a different situation altogether. It was a case of a mistaken identity. A palm was discovered in Central Brazil and named Butia capitata, then a completely different species was found in Uruguay and Southern Brazil and mistakenly thought to be Butia capitata. That second species was quite hardy and quickly was introduced into cultivation as Butia capitata. When it was all sorted out the second species that is currently in cultivation all over the world was named B. odorata. The true Butia capitata is a tropical palm that has never been recorded to be in cultivation anywhere or even exist out side of Central Brazil. Also only a handful of photographs of it exist. You cannot find them on the internet, because any search for Butia capitata would flood the results with B. odorata pictures. They can be found in Noblick and Lorenzi's book.

[sarasota alex]

Pictures of Sabal tamaulipas:

Based on what I read about Sabal "Tamaulipas" I think it will end up being recognized as a form of Sabal minor, once properly studied. Sabal "Nuevo Leon" is already considered to be Sabal minor. The significance of that is that Sabal minor is no longer recognized as a species endemic to the US.

[sarasota alex]

There are also Praha Sabals, which are probably just a distinct population of Sabal × brazoriensis http://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/prc/Sabal/PrahaPalmID.html%C2'>

[sarasota alex]

Here are the results of searching the Palms.org database, lots of interesting data.

An old paper from 1992 has this list for sabals for Mexico:

Current Status of Mexican Palms, by Hermilo J. Quero, Principes 36(4), 1992

http://www.palms.org/principes/1992/vol36n4p203-216.pdf

s. mauritiiformis

s. pumos

s. rosei

s. uresana

s. yapa

s. mexicana

s. greheriae (new species from Quintana Roo)

s. dugessii (based on a cultivated specimen in Rincon de Bustos, Guanajuato, thought to be variant of pumos)

This article describes sabal lisa, it's a fun read: http://www.palms.org/palmsjournal/2005/vol49n1p46-47.pdf

Here's an article on sabal brazoria: http://www.palms.org/palmsjournal/1999/vol43n3p133-135.pdf.

Sadly enough, that's all I managed to find in the database. There has to be more, but it's so hard to search.

I disagree with Quero's logic of lumping of Sabal guatemalensis into Sabal mexicana, yet splitting the Northeast Yukatan Sabal mexicana population into Sabal gretheriae. Either all of distinct S. mexicana forms are S. mexicana or both S. guatemalensis and S. gretheriae deserve to be recognized as separate taxa. I personally believe that they are 3 distinct species.

[Ed in Houston]

Well I guess one cannot argue with DNA WRT the Brazoria Sabal being a hybrid between S.Minor and S.Palmetto but can someone explain to me how this is possible when the nearest native populations of S. Palmetto are 500 miles away from the Brazoria.

Ed

[SailorBold]

woah

[Phoenikakias]

Just to connect another topic with this one http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/41881-could-it-be-a-sabal-palmetto/

BTW could the occasional production of a short inflorescence on a Sabal, which otherwise produces typical for a minor tall inflorescences, be an indication of hybridization or a trait for a certain minor variety?