Another Royal question

[quaman58]

Hey all,

Purchased this one as a Roystonea Venezuelana maybe 3 years ago. Although I was told that many folks down in S. America consider this a separate species from R. Oleracea, I've always gone on the assumption it's an Oleracea. Then it occured to me that it could be R. Regia for all I know. I just don't really know how to differentiate them. Here's some images; any expert help out there? One small clue has been that it normally suffers cold damage to a far greater degreee than any palm I have, although it seems to be affected a bit less as it gets older. Thanks in advance!

Rapidly swelling base...

Leaf detail..

B/R's

Bret

[deezpalms]

Hey bret it looks like oleracea to me since it's got wider leaflets. The regia and all other royals have much thinner leaflets kinda like queens do.

[quaman58]

Thanks Dave. I got a bit confused reading RLR's book. He seemed to indicate that the leaflets of Oleracea grew in a single "plane", whereas Regia grow at several

different angles. Other than that, my neighbor has a very youg Regia that has a speckled crownshaft. But that may be an age thing.

Bret

[quaman58]

I apologize for the persistance on this guys (& gals). Considering how some of you can tell apart different strains of Dypsis by the way they smell   , someone has to know how to ID these subspecies.

Bret

[DoomsDave]

Bret:

I think you have an R. ollie, judging by the size of the leaflets and by the way it yellows in the winter.  Ollies are always the yellowest, but, when it warms up, away they go, unless they get frozen.

Also, as they get bigger, the yellowing becomes less of a problem.

There might be other more sutle ways to tell them.  I'll sneak a peek at my bouncing baby when I get home.

dave

[quaman58]

Dave,

In reading RLR's book, it seems like his saying that oleracea leaves grow in a relatively flat fashion, whereas regia is fully "plumose", I'm assuming like a queen or foxtail. But I could be misunderstanding that, and there's no regia around here to compare it to!

Bret

[bgl]

Bret,

I have looked at the photos a couple of times now, and every time I look at photo #3 my instant reaction is just "regia". The leaflets on an oleracea just don't look like that. I don't have a good shot on file showing the leaflets of either an oleracea or a regia, but here's a photo that shows an oleracea. I didn't take it for the oleracea, I took it for the view (the palms on the right are Euterpe oleracea). Anyway, just look at the frond on the R. oleracea that's sticking up to the right from the palm, a little bit above the horizontal plane. That shows pretty well the leaflets in one plane and also the fact that the leaflets are fairly wide and almost overlapping. Comparing the leaflets between the two, the regia looks much more "unorganized"!

Bo-Göran

[DoomsDave]

Bo is correct, but keep in mind that palms on lush Hawaii are going to be even lusher than the same species here.

I always used to tell them apart by how quickly they yellowed in the winter in the pots.

Ollies yellowed first and worst, and had the fattest leaves.

Regias yellowed next, with fat but not super-fat leaves.

Borenquenias yellowed last, if at all, and they had the skinniest leaves, almost grassy in younger plants.

dave