What's wrong with this Sabal Louisiana?

[Flow 189]

I am asking for a German fried who is not a member here. Before too many words, a few photos:

 

This Sabal was planted in 2007 and grew very well until three years ago. Leaves started becoming continuously smaller since then and this year, it started to push out a flower stalk from the centre - it almost looks like a mini-corypha's terminal spike.

It is protected every winter and never sees temperatures below -8C (17.6F).

Has anybody ever seen anything like this? Any chance of survival/recovery? After all, it is still alive and growing... Any suggestions as to how to facilitate its recovery?

thanks!

[TexasColdHardyPalms 3,121]

It had a fungus infection that resulted in smaller leaves. Need to treat with daconil or another fungicide. 

[Vinc 42]

Very interesting Flo, thanks for sharing here!

@TexasColdHardyPalms, I don't think so. For me this seems to be different than the quite frequently reported fungus infection, where the center leaf stops growing and then sometimes start to push out from the site.

Here the inflorescence pushes through the center and there is a continuing transition from petioles turning into the sheating bracts of the inflorescence! As Flo already stated, this is what hapaxanthic or monocarpic palms normally do!

Maybe this is a natural, endogenous habit that is extremely rare for Sabal palms. At least they are not that unrelated to palm species, that exhibiting this habit.

There are for example also other unusual, rare habits of palms in terms of their flowering, e.g. when dioecious palm species suddenly produce male and female flowers on the same plant.

For sure it could also be induced by external factors such asclimate or fungus. Only way to find out would be to cut the palm in half

[TexasColdHardyPalms 3,121]

I disagree;, that's a fungus not a monocarpic marvel.  Seen it happen hundreds of times now minus the flowering part. Pour daconil down there and you'll get normal fronds.  

[Vinc 42]

Don't you think it is a bit early to be so sure about it? You wrote by yourself you saw it a hundred of time - but always without flowers. That basically means you never saw what exactly happened with that palm on the pic before.

What is pretty sure though is, that it shows all the visible characteristic of a monocarpic behavior. Its not only pushing an inflorescence out of the center, the whole part of the "stem" became elongated - typical for monocarpic palms before flowering.

As I said, this process could also be triggered by exogenous factors such as fungus or climate. I think the reason why this is interesting is, that it does not seem to be a mechanical issue, where the leafs get stuck an grow out again from the side. At the moment and from the outside it definitely looks as this palm was able to change to a monocarpic habit.

Would be interesting what is going to happen next. Dying, pushing out from the side, or even splitting? :)