Curious trunk damage, comments ?

[Darold Petty]

I was asked to examine a queen palm, Syagrus romanzoffianum, here in San Francico.   The palm is quite heavy bodied and robust, even thought the homeowner does not irrigate the palm.  It is about 16 inches in diameter at 12 feet above ground, and the swollen base is about 24 inches with plenty of adventitious roots showing above the surface.   Clearly there must be ample soil moisture as SF gets only about 22  inches of rainfall in a 5 month period.

As shown the palm has a 'Vee'  shaped cavity in the surface, all the way around the trunk circumference.  At first I had thought that this was an ignorant attempt to girdle the palm, but it is high above ground, and part of the cavity is still concealed behind older leafbases.  This damage is about 1.5 inches deep and 1.5 inches wide from top to bottom.  The homeowner was concerned that the crown might be vulnerable to complete breakoff during high wind events.  Based on the original 16 inch diameter I have calculated that this palm still has about 83% of the diameter area intact.

Based on this 83% intact trunk area and palms well-known wind resistance I assured the homowner that the palm was not in danger of crown failure.  

Do you agree with this conclusion ??  And what might have caused such a unique pattern of  damage ??  Thanks ! 

[Ben in Norcal]

Odd.  Almost looks like something was tied around the palm?

I agree it should be fine at any rate!

[Tyrone]

I’ve never seen anything like it. Can the owner remember if it put out a funky leaf or two a few years back when that section would have been part of the growing bud. It looks too uniform to be natural but if it was under a leaf base it must be natural. I’m thinking a fungal attack to the growing bud a few years back. As far as strength left in the trunk I think it will be fine. Even when cutting one down the trunk holds on until the last few centimetres before it finally breaks. It looks like in the groove the trunk has completely formed with that outer capping so that’s good. Real weird.

[Reeverse]

I've seen that with using a razor knife to reboot palms. The trimmer going a lil too deep maybe?