Making some big fallaensis

[kurt decker]

Rick Kern, George Zammas, Brian Bauer and I spent the afternoon putting Copernicia fallaensis in hundred gallon pots yesterday. These are going to be beautiful next year. Probably one of the more spectacular palms out there. I don't think we can grow enough of them here in Florida.

Edited July 20, 2018 by kurt decker

[Josh-O]

wow!! I had a feeling there were some lurking in the Florida plant scene..  Nicely done. What will you be asking for price??

[kurt decker]

Don't really know. I've never had them that big. Normally we can get Baileyana up to about 10 foot in those pots in a year. I think these might be faster. I guess we'll find out. I will definitely post them again.

[Josh-O]

1 hour ago, kurt decker said:

Don't really know. I've never had them that big. Normally we can get Baileyana up to about 10 foot in those pots in a year. I think these might be faster. I guess we'll find out. I will definitely post them again.

thanks.

[PalmatierMeg]

Fantastic!

[paquicuba]

Keep us posted please. Looking forward on buying one of those beauties 

[sonoranfans]

Just renting a front end loader to plant one will cost at least a couple hundred bucks, not including truck transport to your site.  Sensitive roots and very heavy palm means it would be wise to be very careful when putting in the ground.  Cuban copernicias don't do well with root damage.  mine was 10' overall and weighed more than 1500 lbs partly due to rock in the rootball.  The front end loader was $350 a day and Ken Johnson delivered it and planted it for me.  today its about 20' tall, but still growing the crown back after it lost 1/3 to damage in IRMA.  All those sharp spines of newer leaves just shredded the older leaves in the big winds.

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

@Josh-O There are a half dozen nice 9 year old 15g in escondido for sale that will look like these in a years time. 

[Sabal Steve]

Who sells these in Escondido?

[Palmaceae]

 

2 hours ago, sonoranfans said:

Just renting a front end loader to plant one will cost at least a couple hundred bucks, not including truck transport to your site.  Sensitive roots and very heavy palm means it would be wise to be very careful when putting in the ground.  Cuban copernicias don't do well with root damage.  mine was 10' overall and weighed more than 1500 lbs partly due to rock in the rootball.  The front end loader was $350 a day and Ken Johnson delivered it and planted it for me.  today its about 20' tall, but still growing the crown back after it lost 1/3 to damage in IRMA.  All those sharp spines of newer leaves just shredded the older leaves in the big winds.

I agree with the root sentitivity with Copernicia's, I tried to transplant my baileyana from my old garden to the new and it did not make it. But my hospita did make it and growing well. Love to have one of those fallaensis!

[Josh-O]

10 hours ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

@Josh-O There are a half dozen nice 9 year old 15g in escondido for sale that will look like these in a years time. 

are you talking about copernicia fallaensis??????

[kurt decker]

Elizabeth Sperry from D'Asign Source was convinced that one of these was a baileyana. She showed me a good way to tell baileyana and fallaensis apart. Looking at the picture above, I think she is right. It sticks out like a sore thumb.(blue plant, third from front). I'll take some pictures tomorrow and show everybody how she identifies them. I've been doing this for a long time, and I didn't know.

Edited July 21, 2018 by kurt decker

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

8 hours ago, Josh-O said:

are you talking about copernicia fallaensis??????

I mispoke. I had silverbailey's.  My bad.

[Tingtongthai]

On 7/20/2018, 9:48:26, kurt decker said:

Don't really know. I've never had them that big. Normally we can get Baileyana up to about 10 foot in those pots in a year. I think these might be faster. I guess we'll find out. I will definitely post them again.

its a  quick palm here this one  about 5  years old

[Cape Garrett]

On 7/19/2018, 10:39:37, kurt decker said:

Rick Kern, George Zammas, Brian Bauer and I spent the afternoon putting Copernicia fallaensis in hundred gallon pots yesterday. These are going to be beautiful next year. Probably one of the more spectacular palms out there. I don't think we can grow enough of them here in Florida.

Are these supposed to be planted deep?  I really don't know.  Just curious.  If so...why?  

[sonoranfans]

On 7/20/2018, 10:14:31, kurt decker said:

Elizabeth Sperry from D'Asign Source was convinced that one of these was a baileyana. She showed me a good way to tell baileyana and fallaensis apart. Looking at the picture above, I think she is right. It sticks out like a sore thumb.(blue plant, third from front). I'll take some pictures tomorrow and show everybody how she identifies them. I've been doing this for a long time, and I didn't know.

I'm interested to hear this since I never heard anyone say they could definitively tell them apart at a young age like this.  As they get older the leaf bases of fallaensis are almost 2x as wide and the leaflet divisions resemble a diamond shape on fallaensis but more rounded on bailey.  Also leaf length from end of petiole to leaflet tips is ~4-5 ft for bailey and 6' or more for fallaensis.  How to differentiate when that young would be new to me.  There is also the possibility of hybrids as these cuban copernica do readily cross in nature.

[Josh-O]

20 hours ago, Tingtongthai said:

its a  quick palm here this one  about 5  years old

wozzzzzers

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

@Tingtongthai what doesn't grow fast there???

[kurt decker]

Bailey and fallaense look very similar to most people.  Elizabeth showed me how they are very different if you look closely. For the last couple days, I've been looking at other people's plants to make sure this is correct before I posted it. It's been 100%. The other thing I'll mention is that while baileyanas seem to be all over the map as far as color and form when they're younger, fallaensis is very uniform at all sizes. The key is the teeth on the petiole. On fallaensis, the spines are usually colored very similar to the rest of the plant, and fairly small. You don't notice the armament glancing at the plant. Baileyana on the other hand, always has large prominent black teeth. From what I have observed this is extremely consistent. Garrett, to answer your question, I plant all fan palms deep. Until they trunk, they are practically a sail, they move around in the wind so much. Remote germination sets them deep in nature, so I'm just replicaing that. All the real big stuff, copernicias, borrassus, even bismarcks, have fleshy roots and a weak attachment point to the plant. So I let them anchor down deep so they grow in solid.

Edited July 23, 2018 by kurt decker

[kurt decker]

This is the blue plant in the picture at the top. I guess somebody got it mixed up when it was a baby. It looked the same as the rest of them for a long time. Now it's clearly different looking at the leaves. But those black spines are a dead giveaway. Baileyana

[sonoranfans]

baileys are apparently highly variable in color, here is mine.

[kurt decker]

Baileyanas do vary a lot. That looks like a nice one, very glaucous. I'm not surprised, if you got it from Ken. And the black spines are there, as they should be on a Bailey.

[Tingtongthai]

On 7/23/2018, 5:46:57, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

@Tingtongthai what doesn't grow fast there???

Coccothrinax Borhidiana

[Tingtongthai]

On 7/23/2018, 1:23:02, kurt decker said:

This is the blue plant in the picture at the top. I guess somebody got it mixed up when it was a baby. It looked the same as the rest of them for a long time. Now it's clearly different looking at the leaves. But those black spines are a dead giveaway. Baileyana

howver rps website shows a  fallaensis with  black  spines ?

[sonoranfans]

Not sure the black thorns are actually definitive for bailey/fallaensis provenance.  Taxonomists have not used this as an identifier to my knowledge and the above photo sure looks a lot like fallaensis with those black thorns and huge flat leafbases.  Provenance of fallaensis vs bailey appears to be more difficult than the presence of black thorns.  When Ken Johnson delivered my "fallaensis" he called it a "fallaensis type" palm, said he wasn't sure of the provenence.  As it grew large the leaves appear to be too big for bailey(6'+) and now I see the "diamond pattern" in the leaflets more clearly.  Still, mine could be a hybrid as I was told the cuban copernicias readily hybridize in the wild.  The subject of this thread are gorgeous palms, but it may be that some are and some aren't fallaensis.

[kurt decker]

Difference is, I know where mine came from. Falla Cuba. I'm dealing with plants, not a picture on a website. I have three batches. I know who picked the seeds on every one of them. I'm not aware of fallaensis hybridizing with anything.

Edited July 25, 2018 by kurt decker

[sonoranfans]

bottom of page 3:   http://www.palmnutpages.com/articles/An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Palms%20of%20Cuba.pdf

"As stated previously, Coccothrinax and Copernicia are in need of a great amount of taxonomic work. The greatest problem in researching these genera is the hybridization and variability that can occur within some species. In Copernicia, many of the natural hybrids listed above were initially considered to be distinct species until further field work was done. As might be expected, seed from these hybrids will produce a wide range of offspring. For example, seed of Copernicia x burretiana will produce plants that look like C. macroglossa, C. hospita, and everything in-between. There are areas in Cuba where the hybrid populations are so diverse that it is difficult to understand what the original species were that produced these offspring. Some of the plants seen in these populations are truly extraordinary. "

 

yep copernicias hybridize readily.  Some taxonimists have opined that a blue bailey is a bailey hybrid with fallaensis.

[kurt decker]

I don't want to argue with you, you live in Palmetto. I have roots there. Paul Craft just gave a presentation at the Palm Beach Palm Society few months back that I went to, and he talked extensively about hybrids. I don't think there's anything that hybridizes with fallaense. I've gotten three batches of seed or seedlings out of Falla, and so far I have seen zero variability. I mention it above, they are among the most uniform of Copernicias. I've never had a big fallaensis. I'm going to learn watching these grow. I went and looked at a lot of plants in the last week besides just mine, and everybody I talk to knows where their plants came from. And so far the difference in the spines is accurate. I'm just an observer, not an expert. But I'm observing actual plants, not pictures online. That has value

[sonoranfans]

1 hour ago, kurt decker said:

I don't want to argue with you, you live in Palmetto. I have roots there. Paul Craft just gave a presentation at the Palm Beach Palm Society few months back that I went to, and he talked extensively about hybrids. I don't think there's anything that hybridizes with fallaense. I've gotten three batches of seed or seedlings out of Falla, and so far I have seen zero variability. I mention it above, they are among the most uniform of Copernicias. I've never had a big fallaensis. I'm going to learn watching these grow. I went and looked at a lot of plants in the last week besides just mine, and everybody I talk to knows where their plants came from. And so far the difference in the spines is accurate. I'm just an observer, not an expert. But I'm observing actual plants, not pictures online. That has value

I think we don't know the answer since speciation at a young age is not defined in taxonomy and adult fallaense and possible hybrids are going to be rare.  there are plenty of palms that cannot be differentiated at a young age.  Is fallaense one of them?  And the lack of a mention of fallaense hybrids may merely be the inability to differentiate the young ones without a a genetic analysis.  As a scientist I don't make conclusions based on lack of information.  

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

Kurt, nice looking palms!

 

Interesting about the deep planting.

 

In moving large, high value trees and palms, I thought it would be prudent to install trailer/mobile home tie downs in the soil early on.  That way you can lift them by the tie downs instead of the tree or palm when they get ready for harvest.  I never got to do it though.

 

[Ken Johnson]

 According to some growers some growers the early seed that came in produced several different looking palms. They mostly had the wide petioles and diamond shape but the colors were a bit different. The growers would say one came from so and so the other from another person. These were palms with trunk and I paid the same price but they just looked different.

This explains why I told Sonora that the palm I was selling "looked" like a palm from Falla since I was not sure.

The stories coming back from Cuba these days are different since travel there has somewhat normalized and people are collecting more seed than ever. In such conditions it is expected to see adulterated seed from time to time as well as straight up, purposeful misrepresentation. Buyer beware.

Kurt has shared Elizabeth's ID methods and as Kurt has done I have looked at a LOT of Copernicia this year. The newest seed, collected by Americans, seems to be much better in quality than some of the old stuff. I still see palms in the industry that are hard to ID and a lot of the decisions come from years of visual clues from cultivated specimens and watching to see if my "guesses" are correct. This only takes about 20 years.....

[kurt decker]

The first seed we were able to get out of Cuba was in 1997, a couple of German guys offered a range of species. That seed was a mess. Everybody I know bought every good species by the thousand, as it was the first time we were able to get Copernicias in quantity. Sadly, like many times when certain seeds are worth money, one seed is as good as another to the peasant selling them. The palms from that seed are still around, and like Ken says, who knows what they are. I threw away most of what I had small, as quite a few were nondescript. A few were spectacular, like the Bailey in this picture. Fallaense is special, because so far I don't believe it has set viable seed in cultivation. The groups of plants I have were collected by people I know and trust, in Falla, Cuba. Baileyana is a little easier to obtain, I have all kinds of plants from many sources, habitat collected, cultivated, unknown, some are better than others, but we know that plant pretty well. I would say that Elizabeth's information is good, unless someone can find a Falla plant that doesn't key out that way. I looked at close to a hundred plants, all of known origin last week, they were uniform. And I looked at lots of Bailey's, same thing. As far as science goes, we are all scientists. Observation is science. You put it out there for all to see and compare. But the key here is knowable origin. Because Fallaensis only comes from one place.

[bstoller]

Awesome palm Kurt !!  I can only hope mine makes it to that size one day.  

 

[Sabal Steve]

1 hour ago, kurt decker said:

The first seed we were able to get out of Cuba was in 1997, a couple of German guys offered a range of species. That seed was a mess. Everybody I know bought every good species by the thousand, as it was the first time we were able to get Copernicias in quantity. Sadly, like many times when certain seeds are worth money, one seed is as good as another to the peasant selling them. The palms from that seed are still around, and like Ken says, who knows what they are. I threw away most of what I had small, as quite a few were nondescript. A few were spectacular, like the Bailey in this picture. Fallaense is special, because so far I don't believe it has set viable seed in cultivation. The groups of plants I have were collected by people I know and trust, in Falla, Cuba. Baileyana is a little easier to obtain, I have all kinds of plants from many sources, habitat collected, cultivated, unknown, some are better than others, but we know that plant pretty well. I would say that Elizabeth's information is good, unless someone can find a Falla plant that doesn't key out that way. I looked at close to a hundred plants, all of known origin last week, they were uniform. And I looked at lots of Bailey's, same thing. As far as science goes, we are all scientists. Observation is science. You put it out there for all to see and compare. But the key here is knowable origin. Because Fallaensis only comes from one place.

I work in HR, so I’m an Employment Scientist.  I observe paperwork.

Nice Bailey.  Fortunately they grow well here, just not like in FL (or Thailand).  

I’ve never heard that Fallaence was less susceptible to hybridization?  I was curious as to where you heard that, and what explanation was given?  Not that I disagree, I just hadn’t ever heard that - I had always sort of assumed that there was a great deal of hybridization going on, given the variety of Copies/Cocos in Cuba.  

Lots of interesting perspectives, throughout.   

[sonoranfans]

I work with plant geneticists and bioinformaticians on the plant chemistry side as a chemist/mathematician.  These visual differences are very likely differences in the expressed genetics and since they come from the same environment I doubt expression was effected by environment.  These fallaense seem to have notably larger more distinct thorns than mine, but maybe that is just that they are younger.  There are so many species in a small place like cuba and they hybridize to some extent.  One day, perhaps sequencing and gene analysis will be performed on palms to see what is causing the difference.  If my palm is not pure fallense, I don't really care as its a beautiful palm and 20' tall an getting larger every year.    It was easily my most expensive palm purchase, but was also well worth the price.  Thanks again Ken for the expertise, advice and the palms that you supplied!

[kurt decker]

I've been thinking about this a lot for the last month or so.  I noticed that people throw out the fact that copernicias hybridize as readily as do coccothrinax. I'm not so sure about that. Yes, I've seen the pictures in Cuba of savannah's that go on for miles full of several species of copernicia and all sorts of intergrades. Let's put that aside for a minute and concentrate on the more ornamental Cuban species here in Florida. Let's look at them one at a time. Fallaense, baileyana, macroglossa, and hospita. As far as I know, no fallaense has set seed in South Florida. All of our seed comes out of Cuba. Seems to be true to species. Next would be baileyana. This is a little tougher. I think of baileyana as those massive blue plants at Fairchild. Out of all the copernicias, more questionable baileyana seed came in that 1997 stuff then any other species. Those trees are now 21 years old. Lots of them are flowering and seeding. And since the tree was sold as baileyana, the seed is being distributed as baileyana. Ask yourself this. Why have those big blue trees at Fairchild never set seed? I don't think baileyana seeds here. Maybe we don't have the pollinator. And I don't think all those smaller green trees are baileys. Forget science for a second. The ornamental value of that tree is the big blue one. So as far as I'm concerned, if it's not big and blue, it's not a Bailey. That may not be scientifically accurate, but it might be, who knows. Now let's get down to hospita and macroglossa. They both seed profusely in Florida. I've been planting seed from those two collected locally for at least 25 years. Between the two I've grown thousands from seed. All of my seed came from gardens with multiple copernicia species. Yet in 25 years, I have never seen a single hybrid, or even an aberrant plant. If you grow locally-produced coccothrinax of any species, you have hybrids in almost every batch. Yet we take for granted that these things (copernicias) hybridize readily, probably based on those habitat pictures. I think in most cases, many of the plants in Florida that people think might be hybrids are simply one of the two dozen nondescript species that came in as mislabeled seed in 1997. Maybe these things don't hybridize so easily.

[BPK Palm Addict]

Great thread Kurt.  This makes me want to go over to the Key West Botanical Garden and take a closer look at theirs.  

[sonoranfans]

The color of my fallensis has changed back and forth a little over time, possibly due to weather and growing conditions which may influence wax production.  When it was planted as a  9-10' palm in 2011 after being expertly root pruned for several months by Ken, it had not a hint of blue, just light green with some white on petioles.  Initially I was disappointed as I thought it would be bluish in color.  This also cast some doubt on its provenance in my mind.  But over time it has shifted back and forth a bit.  As for the Fallaense color being consistent, I cant verify that for mine over the last 7 years.  The function of the wax is partly to slow leaf transpiration but it also reduces photo synthesis to some extent by reflecting a percentage of PAR(photosynthetically active radiation).  If planted in shady conditions, the leaf color may lose some of its blue in an effort to collect more PAR.  Mine is in 100% full sun, not shaded at all.  My falaense has swung from a light green/olive(definitely lighter than the thailand palms above) to an obvious bluish/grey green.  My bailey has stayed that medium green, no notably blueish or greyish tint except for the petioles.  I have seen other blue palms I have grown change their color over time:  sabal uresana, brahea armata, brahea clara, chamaerops cerifera, copernicia alba.  All of those swung to less blue(less wax) and then back again at some point in their life.  Maybe its due to the variable dry season here in spring(we go 60 days with no measurable rain some years).  I think I will start keeping track of that color change now that I will be back in florida full time.

[DoomsDave]

@Tingtongthai!

The palms in your picture deserve some Thai obscenities of delight . .. .

[Cape Garrett]

On 7/22/2018, 9:02:01, kurt decker said:

Bailey and fallaense look very similar to most people.  Elizabeth showed me how they are very different if you look closely. For the last couple days, I've been looking at other people's plants to make sure this is correct before I posted it. It's been 100%. The other thing I'll mention is that while baileyanas seem to be all over the map as far as color and form when they're younger, fallaensis is very uniform at all sizes. The key is the teeth on the petiole. On fallaensis, the spines are usually colored very similar to the rest of the plant, and fairly small. You don't notice the armament glancing at the plant. Baileyana on the other hand, always has large prominent black teeth. From what I have observed this is extremely consistent. Garrett, to answer your question, I plant all fan palms deep. Until they trunk, they are practically a sail, they move around in the wind so much. Remote germination sets them deep in nature, so I'm just replicaing that. All the real big stuff, copernicias, borrassus, even bismarcks, have fleshy roots and a weak attachment point to the plant. So I let them anchor down deep so they grow in solid.

Thanks Kurt.  That makes sense.  When I look at my Bailey, it looks as if it has been pulled down deeper than I had planted it from two years ago.  Beautiful palms you have there.  Mine is a definite blue with black spines.  No question there...Must be a Bailey.