Foxtail palm (Wodyetia bifurcata)

[Walt]

My largest foxtail palm now has just over 8 feet of clear trunk, and I estimate it is close to 20 feet to the top of the highest frond. I'm wondering just how tall it needs to get to produce viable seed? So far it hasn't produced a spath.

I currently have six foxtail palms in the ground, but would like more. However, I would like to grow them from my own seed, hence my posting of inquiry.

Overall view of palm:

View of trunk:

View looking up into canopy:

[aussiearoids]

It may be a climate thing , as there are many seedling with only 1.5m of trunk around our local supermarket .

[Kris]

Dear Sir

lovely stills of your lovely garden,the cycas looks great ! and even i feel that its mostly dependent on the climate..but adding regular fertz and watering during the months of spring & early summer should show some results...

And also thanks for posting your stills in Hi res mode,instead of thumbnails..

lots of love to you,

Kris

[falcon1988]

Hi Walt,

Like to know the answer as well however. We have Foxtails palm that size in pinellas Co and they are blooming Will try to get a picture of them

there about that height of your Foxtail in the picture.

Regards

[Rusty on Pine Is.]

Walt...I would imagine there are more variables than just size that go into when your fox would seed....i went out and counted the leaf scars in mine and it flowered at 25, but i have seen smaller ones seed sooner.

Is there a clock that is inherent no matter what, or heat degree days, or relative vigor?

[surgeon83]

My neighbors planted a bunch of foxtails with 5-6 feet of trunk last fall, and some of them flowered already.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

I'm surely not the expert on this, but I've heard they take about 9 years from germination to seed in SoFla if they are well taken care off... I think fertilizer is key with these in our poor soils... I have some about the size of yours and feed mine 6-7 lbs of fert a year... Larger ones get 10-12!

[Really full garden]

Mine flowered at 7 yrs. and produced a few seeds the following year.Be careful what you wish for mine now is 18yrs. and produces 2x yearly probably 200+ seeds.It can be messy and dangerous when the lawnmower passes over seed hidden in the grass.

[Tyrone]

Around here, full sun grown specimens would be starting to flower at your stage. I think it could be a bit shady for it at the moment maybe. Try feeding it high potassium fertiliser and see if it does anything.

Best regards

Tyrone

[tikitiki]

Mine started at about the size of yours. last year was the first and it droped all the seeds. This year it seems to be holding its seeds. It did however go into seed at the same time last year as it did this year, late may.

Tom

[simona]

Mine flowered at 7 yrs. and produced a few seeds the following year.Be careful what you wish for mine now is 18yrs. and produces 2x yearly probably 200+ seeds.It can be messy and dangerous when the lawnmower passes over seed hidden in the grass.

Thank you, that's helpful information!

[Walt]

Thanks to all for your replies. The only foxtails in my area that seed are far larger than mine. I was just wondering when they would seed, on average.

I don't know how old my foxtail is from seed. I bought it prior to having a trunk. This was about six years ago. It has grown relatively fast, IMO, and I feed it and water it well, using Lesco 13-3-13-4.5.

I have adonidias that seed with maybe 5 feet of trunk. My largest Archontophoenix cunninghamia, with about 5-1/2 feet of trunk put out an undeveloped spath that fell off.

My Archontophoenix with about seven feet of trunk just two weeks ago put out an undeveloped spath, and it too fell off. I'm hoping both of the above palms will soon put out viable spath with flowers and then seeds, at least by next year.

Also, this particular foxtail isn't in full sun, but mostly broken sun. The trunk on mine is a little more slender than some around here growing in full sun. As Tyrone said, this might be cause for no seed production as of yet.

In my orginal posting I checked the notification block, however I never received any notifications. I notice now it says, "you are currently receiving email notification of replies." I thought I wasn't getting any replies so I checked this forum tonight and found 10 replies. I don't know what the problem is. I'm glad I checked back as I wouldn't want to offend anyone by not acknowledging your replies. Thanks again.

[aussiearoids]

There is a long row at our local supamarket ,, and I just took some pics there today . Some are flowering at only 2m of trunk . and other much larger ones are not !

[aussiearoids]

Infloresences on this one are just at my 2m head height ,,

[Walt]

Infloresences on this one are just at my 2m head height ,,

Michael,

Well, that last foxtail with the inflorescences proves to me the variances in foxtails. My palm is certainly larger than that one and has yet to flower.

I just recently planted three more (bringing my total count to six) foxtail palms. I may even plant more foxtails next year, as I like these palms. One, they are relatively fast growers. And two, they are a good looking palm. With six or more foxtails I will better be able to judge variances in within the species.

Thanks for the photos, as I now have a better understanding of foxtail palm with respect to them flowering.

Walt

[galveston1602]

I personally think its more to do with over winter cold as there are several specimens around here that are easily 3-4m of clear trunk that have never sent spathe's out (untill this year).

Last winter was very mild here, (no temps below 35F) and several of these foxtails as well as a few smaller ones sent out spathes (that were cut off without me seeing if they were going to develop).

If you want more grown from seeds, foxtail seeds are pretty easy to acquire from the net, I think I just got a box of 150 seeds that cost a grand total of 20$ including shipping which coincidentally is quite a lot since they are huge seeds.....

[Mark Heath]

Hello Walt,

I have two Foxtails at my home that are the same size as yours and they have'nt flowerd yet either, but i have one that is in full sun that is smaller than the big ones and it flowerd this year for the first time. I'm thinking about having a

CFPACS meeting here in Dec, so if that comes about, them i hope you'll attend and you'll get to see it.

I thought that maybe it was the climate here in Central Florida, but that lone one in full sun proved me wrong! I'll try and post a pic for you, but i've had problems w/ that in the past!!

[Mark Heath]

Okay, here goes! Foxtail palm

I know the spath is hard to see, but it's there!!

[Mark Heath]

foxtail palm

[Mark Heath]

Foxtail Palm

[Mark Heath]

Sorry Walt, i don't know why it's not working. I only have one more code to try, so here goes.

Foxtail Palm

[Walt]

Sorry Walt, i don't know why it's not working. I only have one more code to try, so here goes.

Foxtail Palm

Mark, the link doesn't work, but no problem.

Yesterday I drove by lots and lots of foxtail palms with trunks larger and taller than the ones in Michael's photo. None had any signs of spath or seeds, etc.

Most seeding foxtail palms in my area are around this size (subdivion in Lake Placid, Florida):

[spockvr6]

Walt-

Around here, most of the seeding ones also seem to be roughly the size of the one you just posted a photo of, maybe a tad smaller. There are pair of them down the street from me that started seeding last year when they had maybe 8 ft of wood. I dont recall the size of these palms when they were planted, but the house they are planted at was built in 2001, so they couldnt have been planted any earlier than that.

[Walt]

Walt-

Around here, most of the seeding ones also seem to be roughly the size of the one you just posted a photo of, maybe a tad smaller. There are pair of them down the street from me that started seeding last year when they had maybe 8 ft of wood. I dont recall the size of these palms when they were planted, but the house they are planted at was built in 2001, so they couldnt have been planted any earlier than that.

Larry,

In the subdivision where my parent's live there's probably more foxtail palms than any other species of palm. Some have fairly stout trunks. None that I could see (I was over there yesterday) had inflorescences or seeds that I could tell. And that prompts the question as to how tall (trunk size) a Roystonea regia has to be before it seeds. I say that as there are lots of royals there. None are more than say 5 years old since planting, but some have 10 feet or more of trunk. I know the older, taller royals aroung here appear to have seeds on them.

[Mark Heath]

One more time