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Phoenix


wimmie

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For a long time now, I am looking for a special type of Phoenix dactylifera. I have seen this variation in several locations in Spain, Marbella, Elche, Llorett de Mar and Torremolinos, but up to now I have not been able to find this palm in a nursery, not in Spain, not in Italy nor in France. Anyone of you ever seen this palm?

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Hi, what are you specifically interested in? The highly yellow raquis is quite typical of Phoenix from around the South-East of Spain, it's a natural variation that's very common in seed grown palms from here (which are quite a lot). The short peduncle is also a wild characteristic which is common in Phoenix from places with wild populations. 

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1 hour ago, Ubuwuntu said:

Hi, what are you specifically interested in? The highly yellow raquis is quite typical of Phoenix from around the South-East of Spain, it's a natural variation that's very common in seed grown palms from here (which are quite a lot). The short peduncle is also a wild characteristic which is common in Phoenix from places with wild populations. 

Not entirely, I grew a male specimen from commercial dates ( probably medjool), which had short peduncles and another male one from commercial deglet noor dates, which has long peduncles.

IMG_20180329_171711.thumb.jpg.8b18f88634ecfba8d0a8b6cfe5d60011.jpg

 

Edited by Phoenikakias
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17 minutes ago, Phoenikakias said:

Not entirely, I grew a male specimen from commercial dates ( probably medjool), which had short peduncles and another male one from commercial deglet noor dates, which has long peduncles.

IMG_20180329_171711.thumb.jpg.8b18f88634ecfba8d0a8b6cfe5d60011.jpg

 

The specimen with shory male inflos may produce occasionally loger ones but this is an exception to the rule. It starts blooming also almost one month earlier than the other one here today pictures.

First the specimen with the short inflos.

20230416_182604.thumb.jpg.a14db76c730faa191456fe34adce17a6.jpg20230416_182518.thumb.jpg.f656b703409a5c11b58150281c82bd22.jpg20230416_182329.thumb.jpg.b4312b44c58df20dd184af4218c692e8.jpg

The the other one with the long inflos. Just today I have seen the first one expanding during current year.

20230416_182236.thumb.jpg.12529d478d61e0f5013ce26c21eb5787.jpg20230416_182814.thumb.jpg.17c776d46ef2fe436d51eb9259a5ff06.jpg

There must be a great deal of intraspecific variation reflecting perhaps introgression of genes from wild spp in the far past?

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20 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

There must be a great deal of intraspecific variation reflecting perhaps introgression of genes from wild spp in the far past?

I wonder what they were pollinated with. Both varieties come from North Africa, were we now finally have confirmed pure wild populations (e.g. Kerkennah islands), and many palms in the oasis agriculture system are seed grown, so there a strong chance that 1. these varieties descend from recent wild ancestors (Medjool is a Landrace variety in Morocco, so there's a constant geneflow between the Medjool Palms and wild/seed grown palms, and a lot of diversity in what is "the Landrace", so the specific Medjool that is mass-produced probably has high amounts of wild genes; I'm not sure on the origin of Deglet Noor though, but it originates from next to the confirmed wild populations so I imagine the case is similar) or 2. they were pollinated with wild/seed grown males, which still hold a lot of wild characteristics, growing in-and-around the oasis agriculture system. Here in Spain it's a traditional practice to grab inflorescences from wild stands to pollinated the domesticated palms (most actually belonging to the 'Medjool' Landrace) as the wild pollen is considered "more fertile", so I imagine something similar happens in North Africa.  All that being said, I don't know what they use in Israel to pollinated the Medjool, which is the biggest exporter, and that could also be a source of wild genes. And thanks for sharing the photos, very nice specimens! I'll try and get some photos of some "Medjool Landrace" palms from my area as they are well into flowering

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@Victor G. landrace is the key word in your quest for producing dates in Marathon.  Search for date producing plants in Attica and try to propagate them by collected seed!

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19 hours ago, Ubuwuntu said:

I wonder what they were pollinated with. Both varieties come from North Africa, were we now finally have confirmed pure wild populations (e.g. Kerkennah islands), and many palms in the oasis agriculture system are seed grown, so there a strong chance that 1. these varieties descend from recent wild ancestors (Medjool is a Landrace variety in Morocco, so there's a constant geneflow between the Medjool Palms and wild/seed grown palms, and a lot of diversity in what is "the Landrace", so the specific Medjool that is mass-produced probably has high amounts of wild genes; I'm not sure on the origin of Deglet Noor though, but it originates from next to the confirmed wild populations so I imagine the case is similar) or 2. they were pollinated with wild/seed grown males, which still hold a lot of wild characteristics, growing in-and-around the oasis agriculture system. Here in Spain it's a traditional practice to grab inflorescences from wild stands to pollinated the domesticated palms (most actually belonging to the 'Medjool' Landrace) as the wild pollen is considered "more fertile", so I imagine something similar happens in North Africa.  All that being said, I don't know what they use in Israel to pollinated the Medjool, which is the biggest exporter, and that could also be a source of wild genes. And thanks for sharing the photos, very nice specimens! I'll try and get some photos of some "Medjool Landrace" palms from my area as they are well into flowering

Yet the most and best pollen in my garden is always taken from the male dacty with the long inflos. Also this feature may answer the mystery, how come an exclusively female population of a local P theophrasti in Epidauros (Greece) get pollinated (even partially) by male specimens several hundreds meters away.  All male specimens have long spadices, much longer than the Vai population. Perhaps they thus produce more pollen both in quantity and fertility!

20220515_142858.thumb.jpg.3f046cebe750113cd054928e066175b8.jpg20221104_193605.thumb.jpg.e178127ec7028fcad0943a1c5c9f1002.jpg20221104_193954.thumb.jpg.d9ad4a80f01082a9a0af9c148185c95e.jpg20221104_194245.thumb.jpg.7d191437610368727eb45e5a1f797ec0.jpg

IMG-2ec278c0a3cf233a00f418ae1359480c-V.jpg

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3 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Yet the most and best pollen in my garden is always taken from the male dacty with the long inflos. Also this feature may answer the mystery, how come an exclusively female population of a local P theophrasti in Epidauros (Greece) get pollinated (even partially) by male specimens several hundreds meters away.  All male specimens have long spadices, much longer than the Vai population. Perhaps they thus produce more pollen both in quantity and fertility!

An interesting hypothesis, I can definitely see it. We really need to study the Epidauros population a lot more (it's at the top of my trip list, even above Crete!), have you had the chance to visit them? I have wondered how they maintained some pollination with the populations being so sex-specific and seperate. I've read that the many canariensis in the area play a part in that as well (I hope they can be removed asap tbh), which definitely needs to be taken into account. The long spadices is really interesting, and your hypothesis about fertility makes a lot of sense to me! 

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1 hour ago, Ubuwuntu said:

An interesting hypothesis, I can definitely see it. We really need to study the Epidauros population a lot more (it's at the top of my trip list, even above Crete!), have you had the chance to visit them? I have wondered how they maintained some pollination with the populations being so sex-specific and seperate. I've read that the many canariensis in the area play a part in that as well (I hope they can be removed asap tbh), which definitely needs to be taken into account. The long spadices is really interesting, and your hypothesis about fertility makes a lot of sense to me! 

The arrow in foreground points to spot if the female population, the two arrows in background point to spots with male specimens. the left arrow points to three male trunks and the right arrow to more than 5 mature male trunks.

I have yet to see a CIDP (whether male or female) with corresponding anthesis to the one of local theophrasti lol. Blooming times belong in entirely different seasons for each sp. Some more bonus pictures of Epidaurus.

20220512_124542.thumb.jpg.d5895c94b22012525c1cef8eb005a710.jpg

Female clumps

IMG-e1c324bf3e520e92de05a6053320d1e5-V.thumb.jpg.ed311c9ea6c2bc4df65f308ce38fd93d.jpgIMG-c013b7abee496c41e82fb1805ba6e70d-V.thumb.jpg.03893fa9e40f8f8f9d1b0367fb5103cc.jpg

Male clumps

20221104_161605.thumb.jpg.07a7019ade0717c4b782c4df778a5832.jpg20221104_153024.thumb.jpg.43e36e889f80cef0f9cff51d648ca88d.jpg20221104_152841.thumb.jpg.c0e417e0249667ec7ae229de031319df.jpg

And the population pointed by the left arrow in the background. First picture shows two different plants, the shorter one being male. Second picture shows a male clump in same spot.

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And a long old male inflo still attached on the plant from the male population under the right arrow.

20221104_153346.thumb.jpg.fc90371cdb819a265fb9d43ae482ec8f.jpg

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8 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

I have yet to see a CIDP (whether male or female) with corresponding anthesis to the one of local theophrasti lol. Blooming times belong in entirely different seasons for each sp. 

 

 

 

That's great to hear! When do they each flower there? Here canariensis flowers around december-march, and our local dactylifera flower around march-july, and I know in the Canary Islands that dactylifera and canariensis have overlapping flowering time, is theophrasti very different from dactyliferas when it comes to flowering times in your experience?

 

And thank you so much for the photos! Do you know if I can read up anymore on the population? I've know about it for a while and have all the palms marked on Google maps, but I've only ever read the blog posts from the Dutch (iirc) nursery that collected seed. They look so great in the photos, very different to what I'm used to seeing around here.

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5 hours ago, Ubuwuntu said:

That's great to hear! When do they each flower there? Here canariensis flowers around december-march, and our local dactylifera flower around march-july, and I know in the Canary Islands that dactylifera and canariensis have overlapping flowering time, is theophrasti very different from dactyliferas when it comes to flowering times in your experience?

 

And thank you so much for the photos! Do you know if I can read up anymore on the population? I've know about it for a while and have all the palms marked on Google maps, but I've only ever read the blog posts from the Dutch (iirc) nursery that collected seed. They look so great in the photos, very different to what I'm used to seeing around here.

CIDP blooming time roughly overlaps with the one in Spain, albeit it starts a bit earlier in autumn and ends within winter. Theo's blooming time takes place in April and May. It can well overlap with blooming time of dactylifera. It is pure luck, that there is no male dactylifera around in Epidauros. If anything should be prohibited for the protection of theophrasti, that is planting of dactylifera.

If you search with the word Epidauros or Epidaurus you will find several interesting topics in the forum of the European Palm Society (palmsociety.org.uk).

 

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10 hours ago, Ubuwuntu said:

That's great to hear! When do they each flower there? Here canariensis flowers around december-march, and our local dactylifera flower around march-july, and I know in the Canary Islands that dactylifera and canariensis have overlapping flowering time, is theophrasti very different from dactyliferas when it comes to flowering times in your experience?

 

And thank you so much for the photos! Do you know if I can read up anymore on the population? I've know about it for a while and have all the palms marked on Google maps, but I've only ever read the blog posts from the Dutch (iirc) nursery that collected seed. They look so great in the photos, very different to what I'm used to seeing around here.

There are around some visible dactylifera trees, but those are fortunately all female

One in the foreyard of a church on a hill and a two trunk clump in straight line with former but higher up in the village.

20220512_124620.thumb.jpg.626a667c39d99fd739dd44df5edc6a29.jpg20220512_124558.thumb.jpg.ebc04977b300f373211958c7e18476f4.jpg

The peculiar thing with the dacty by the church is that it bears some vegetative resemblance to the Iberian purportedly wild specimens (not regarding fruits and seeds however, which are remarkably tasteless for dates) and that it produces fertile seeds in small quantities. NO, pollinizers are not a couple male CIDP's on the other side of the hill, discard this ridiculous theory, as this dactylifera has an entirely synchronized blooming with the theo population. Imho this dactylifera is either a dactyphrasti hybrid and its offspring are f2 or higher hybrids or at least offspring are f1 hybrids.

20220512_143134.thumb.jpg.1d00c2709c8bd35f14a086fb43ffa74b.jpg20221104_143545.thumb.jpg.96f501f89aebc66ef2c8e866b17bc308.jpg20220512_143147.thumb.jpg.274808cd7ed45ec099ff6871d2e859be.jpg20220512_143142.thumb.jpg.812500f79f173f1fa430f6beb9a62f95.jpg

Older offspring below the canopy of the 'dactylifera'

20221104_143513.thumb.jpg.c34418cc21106b328f81e3bba354db8e.jpg20221104_143520.thumb.jpg.ac91fd084dccfd0f6887160e34828e07.jpg20221104_143617.thumb.jpg.a04f5a11c38c3d2b422b83ae7d920ede.jpg

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Removed infructescence with mostly unpollinated fruit

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Gathered fruit and extracted seeds

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17 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

CIDP blooming time roughly overlaps with the one in Spain, albeit it starts a bit earlier in autumn and ends within winter. Theo's blooming time takes place in April and May. It can well overlap with blooming time of dactylifera. It is pure luck, that there is no male dactylifera around in Epidauros. If anything should be prohibited for the protection of theophrasti, that is planting of dactylifera.

This is really interesting, I've never read up on Theophrasti flowering and have never got to see any around where I am, how consistent is the flowering time over the different populations? I agree that dactyliferas should be limited in that case, we don't want a mini Canary Islands situation. Especially considering the spectacular beauty of these palms.

 

12 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

The peculiar thing with the dacty by the church is that it bears some vegetative resemblance to the Iberian purportedly wild specimens (not regarding fruits and seeds however, which are remarkably tasteless for dates) and that it produces fertile seeds in small quantities. NO, pollinizers are not a couple male CIDP's on the other side of the hill, discard this ridiculous theory, as this dactylifera has an entirely synchronized blooming with the theo population. Imho this dactylifera is either a dactyphrasti hybrid and its offspring are f2 or higher hybrids or at least offspring are f1 hybrids.

 

Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that it looks quite similar to our Phoenix 'iberica' in some of its characteristics. The fruit and seed is very dactylifera-like, and the acantophylls seem perfectly intermediate between dactylifera and theophrasti, so it being an F1 hybrid seems very likely, and the seed being 3/4 theophrasti would follow from that.

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12 hours ago, Ubuwuntu said:

This is really interesting, I've never read up on Theophrasti flowering and have never got to see any around where I am, how consistent is the flowering time over the different populations? I agree that dactyliferas should be limited in that case, we don't want a mini Canary Islands situation. Especially considering the spectacular beauty of these palms.

 

Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that it looks quite similar to our Phoenix 'iberica' in some of its characteristics. The fruit and seed is very dactylifera-like, and the acantophylls seem perfectly intermediate between dactylifera and theophrasti, so it being an F1 hybrid seems very likely, and the seed being 3/4 theophrasti would follow from that.

Blooming time depends heavily on local climate and Crete is considerably warmer than say south-central Greece. Generally blooming of plants in Crete takes place one month earlier than here or even a bit earlier. But I keepin my garden near Athens 3 exemplars of P theophrasti originating from Crete and blooming time overlaps perfectly with the one of the subpopulation in Epidauros. That's a fact, checked several times.

One of my plants and stand of its anthesis by the time I visited Epidauros last year in spring, when the whole wild population was also in active anthesis.20230404_181949.thumb.jpg.53eb40deac3d69ba904984dcb0ae0f2c.jpg20220507_161939.thumb.jpg.2adedc90473576a1bfb6150a0cdf7e72.jpg

What is remarkable with tje anthesis of Theo, is that fresh pollen stinks like old fish, while fresh pollen of dactylifera is fragrant. Those are tiny details, that a botanist will only rarely will be aware of compared tp a grower, who lives together with the plants every day.

Another tiny detail is that size of fruits of hybrids of dactylifera is closer to the size of the dactylifera. I have a roebelifera female hybrid, that produces edible dates, only a but smaller than the genuine ones.

From left to right fruits and seeds from my garden Phoenix plants, roebelenii, loureiroi, roebelifera, dactylifera20220923_163236.thumb.jpg.eba1b64f42e8da08f0ae6830c30776bb.jpg20220923_163515.thumb.jpg.8c54a6cd5014547c941de9fda42b4779.jpg

Phoenix roebelifera and infructescens

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10 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Blooming time depends heavily on local climate and Crete is considerably warmer than say south-central Greece. Generally blooming of plants in Crete takes place one month earlier than here or even a bit earlier. But I keepin my garden near Athens 3 exemplars of P theophrasti originating from Crete and blooming time overlaps perfectly with the one of the subpopulation in Epidauros. That's a fact, checked several times.

One of my plants and stand of its anthesis by the time I visited Epidauros last year in spring, when the whole wild population was also in active anthesis.

What is remarkable with the anthesis of Theo, is that fresh pollen stinks like old fish, while fresh pollen of dactylifera is fragrant. Those are tiny details, that a botanist will only rarely will be aware of compared tp a grower, who lives together with the plants every day..

 

This is all great to know, thanks! I've written it all down. We supposedly have a Phoenix germoplasm collection near where I am where they have a few theos so I'll try to get down there and note flowering (including smell!)

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Returning to the original topic lol. Here are some "Yellow Raquis" specimens from around our old Palm Grove. I went out looking today and saw quite a few very distinct specimens with these features, I found a male and female pair, but didn't look like the female has ever produced fruit, all flowers seem aborted. I have tried pollinating the female to try and get seed. 

The male:IMG_20230421_175725_1.thumb.jpg.faa7d078432d3737ed865ebc1065c0bc.jpgIMG_20230421_175736_1.thumb.jpg.1875ea7667fb81195b0b21a197d28c25.jpg

The female:

IMG_20230421_175851_1.thumb.jpg.06fa4b6e9035ddc582e59fe0189a7dc2.jpgIMG_20230421_180214_1.thumb.jpg.8706309e8291a2018f8e4babaf3ffcc4.jpgIMG_20230421_175857_1.thumb.jpg.bf97dfb68eae8dc6f0d943c228b34076.jpgIMG_20230421_180505_1.thumb.jpg.e67f0d5aabb2b391f7812cb94be19aca.jpgIMG_20230421_180202.thumb.jpg.5e0d18c057c70bad5ea6d12f49b8f7ae.jpg

A frond from the female:

IMG_20230421_180704_1.thumb.jpg.d4d65743ac1481296d921902bda6d6c7.jpg

My pollination attempt lol:

IMG_20230421_180512_1.thumb.jpg.324e479eb3d774eb843af64ecd5f1d85.jpg

Edited by Ubuwuntu
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