Pseudo-crownshaft

[Kentuckypalms]

I have heard this term thrown around infrequently. Some I hear it with are ravenea and neoveitchias. What does the term really mean and what are good examples.

[quaman58]

Good question. I always assumed that a palm with a so-called crownshaft shed their leaves and leaf bases in a generally clean manner and non crownshafted palms did not. But that becomes a lot less obvious as palms age. Howeas, many Raveneas, even Syagrus can become clean shedding as they become older. I have a Ravenea madagascariensis growing near a Syagrus psuedococos and they both have these beautiful clean, ringed trunks. So, what’s the technical difference between crownshaft and no crownshaft? Sorry, no idea!

[Phoenikakias]

23 minutes ago, quaman58 said:

Good question. I always assumed that a palm with a so-called crownshaft shed their leaves and leaf bases in a generally clean manner and non crownshafted palms did not. But that becomes a lot less obvious as palms age. Howeas, many Raveneas, even Syagrus can become clean shedding as they become older. I have a Ravenea madagascariensis growing near a Syagrus psuedococos and they both have these beautiful clean, ringed trunks. So, what’s the technical difference between crownshaft and no crownshaft? Sorry, no idea!

Livistona spp are have also a self cleaning habit after a certain age and Bismarckia too. So not an exclusive trait of crownshafted genera, as you have pointed out already. I guess the term crownshaft refers only to those palms, with leaves having a base, which encloses entirely, the forming trunk.

[JubaeaMan138]

5 hours ago, quaman58 said:

Good question. I always assumed that a palm with a so-called crownshaft shed their leaves and leaf bases in a generally clean manner and non crownshafted palms did not. But that becomes a lot less obvious as palms age. Howeas, many Raveneas, even Syagrus can become clean shedding as they become older. I have a Ravenea madagascariensis growing near a Syagrus psuedococos and they both have these beautiful clean, ringed trunks. So, what’s the technical difference between crownshaft and no crownshaft? Sorry, no idea!

I’ve thought about this . So wouldn’t every palm technically be self cleaning ? Eventually every frond falls off right after so long ? I’m curious because most species you see grown are trimmed at one point . I can’t imagine a 30 foot queen palm with a skirt to the ground . 

[Kentuckypalms]

23 minutes ago, JubaeaMan138 said:

I’ve thought about this . So wouldn’t every palm technically be self cleaning ? Eventually every frond falls off right after so long ? I’m curious because most species you see grown are trimmed at one point . I can’t imagine a 30 foot queen palm with a skirt to the ground . 

Not washy filifera

[quaman58]

8 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Livistona spp are have also a self cleaning habit after a certain age and Bismarckia too. So not an exclusive trait of crownshafted genera, as you have pointed out already. I guess the term crownshaft refers only to those palms, with leaves having a base, which encloses entirely, the forming trunk.

That's as a good description as I can think of. A leaf base fully encircling the trunk (which then splits on the back side as it prepares to shed) vs. a palm with leaf bases that do not fully encircle the trunk.  

[Phoenikakias]

29 minutes ago, quaman58 said:

That's as a good description as I can think of. A leaf base fully encircling the trunk (which then splits on the back side as it prepares to shed) vs. a palm with leaf bases that do not fully encircle the trunk.  

So pseudocrownshaft  must refer to other palms with leaves having cylidrical  leaf bases almost (but not entirely) encircling trunk with a mainly glabrous surface. One good example would be the larger Chamaedorea spp.

[tim_brissy_13]

One well known example of a species with a pseudo crownshaft is Cyphosperma balansae. I don’t have many good photos showing the feature but there’s some good ones on Palmpedia. The leaf bases of C balansae typically don’t quite fully encircle the trunk (or it can vary specimen to specimen) which is what the definition of a crownshaft is as mentioned above. I believe other Cyphosperma sp are the same. 
 

I’ve also heard of Mauritiella armata being said to have a pseudo crownshaft which is interesting for a fan type palm. 

[Alan_Tampa]

So I had a back and forth with Robert Lee Riffle about the pseudo crown shaft of Psuedophoenix. 

He was going to post a topic related to it, but he died shortly after. So, we never got the low down on the forum.

 

[spike]

Since dypsis has both crownshafted and non-crownshafted palms, would there be in between ones?

[tim_brissy_13]

1 hour ago, spike said:

Since dypsis has both crownshafted and non-crownshafted palms, would there be in between ones?

Yep. D rivularis, D madagascariensis and D marojejyi to name a few.