Are these Butia?

[CTho]

I don’t see many pinnate palms in Austin besides Butia, invariably with short trunks and fronds pointed mostly upwards (i.e. the crown isn’t spherical)...are these also (much older) Butia?

W 6th St

Edited July 22, 2019 by CTho

[GottmitAlex]

Those looke like date palms (Phoenix Dactylifera)

Edited July 22, 2019 by GottmitAlex

[CTho]

13 minutes ago, GottmitAlex said:

Those looke like date palms (Phoenix Dactylifera)

Interesting, I thought it got too cold here for them! They do look nearly obliterated in Google’s streetview photos from March 2011, a month after it fell to 18° F...

[GottmitAlex]

I was about to ask how cold does it get in Austin. Seems they are quite cold hardy...

I quote:

"Cold Stress

The cold stress temperature threshold (TTCS) mechanism was used to describe the species’ response to frost. Generally, the minimum winter temperature that can be tolerated by P. dactylifera is 10°C [11]. However, date palms have been recorded in locations as low as 4°C [28]. Therefore, intolerance to frost was incorporated by accumulating stress when the average monthly minimum temperature fell below 4°C, with the frost stress accumulation rate (THCS) set at –0.01 week⁻¹. This cold-stress mechanism allowed the species to survive in Spain (39° 635′ N and 2° 523′ W) [28]. Additionally, this value provided an appropriate fit to the observed distribution in South America, South Africa and Asia."

Source:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480471/

[Darold Petty]

Phoenix dactylifera  

[CTho]

Well that makes all the dates I’ve germinated much more practical. Or maybe less, if that means they might grow too big to bring indoors!

[kinzyjr]

4 minutes ago, CTho said:

Well that makes all the dates I’ve germinated much more practical. Or maybe less, if that means they might grow too big to bring indoors!

In their favored arid climates, they are hardier than the mid-to-upper teens that tend to be their limit here in Florida and in other humid areas.