Nannorrhops ritchiana

[freakypalmguy]

I have a few different plants of Nannorrhops ritchiana planted at my place and have notice how variable they are. Some actually appear to be a different species all together. Some have very thin wispy palmate fronds that seams to want to stay low, while others have thicker fingers on the fronds appear to have more of a stem. Here is some shots.

cont...

[freakypalmguy]

Here is a side by side planting that I did of two different types. Don't ask me why I planted them so close, maybe I wasn't happy with the fact that this was a clumper already I think I lost my mind, but that's another story.

This one really shows two different forms.

The palm on the left

The right side palm

Closeup of the palm on the left with some orange color to it

Does anyone have more info on these?

[PalmGuyWC]

Hi Matt,

If I were you, I would seperate the two growing together, as Nannorrhops can get huge. I have several and they have all grown at different rates. Mine are at least 30 years old and some are scrubby not much higher than my head, while one is a monster with a 10' foot print and is 20' high. I think my large one may be the largest in Calif., accordian to S. Californian's who have seen it. None of mine seem to be very variable in apperance except for the size.

A couple of mine have gotten shaded out from other palms over the years, but they will take part shade, but prefer full sun although my large one gets part shade. I have never moved any of mine but I hear they move fairly eaisly. Mine are all a dull blue/silver, but the ones from Arabia can be very silver. I don't think the Arabian ones are as cold hardy as the others.

Nannorrhops are strange palms as they may sit for years and not grow much, then all of a sudden they will explode with growth. It's neat that you have some that look different. I expect you have the perfect climate for them.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

Hi Matt,

If I were you, I would seperate the two growing together, as Nannorrhops can get huge. I have several and they have all grown at different rates. Mine are at least 30 years old and some are scrubby not much higher than my head, while one is a monster with a 10' foot print and is 20' high. I think my large one may be the largest in Calif., accordian to S. Californian's who have seen it. None of mine seem to be very variable in apperance except for the size.

A couple of mine have gotten shaded out from other palms over the years, but they will take part shade, but prefer full sun although my large one gets part shade. I have never moved any of mine but I hear they move fairly eaisly. Mine are all a dull blue/silver, but the ones from Arabia can be very silver. I don't think the Arabian ones are as cold hardy as the others.

Nannorrhops are strange palms as they may sit for years and not grow much, then all of a sudden they will explode with growth. It's neat that you have some that look different. I expect you have the perfect climate for them.

Dick

Hi Dick,

I will separate these as soon as I figure out where one will go. They were small strap leafers when I planted them and had not seen the pictures of your giant yet.

The colors on mine range from a light olive green to a grayish color to very white (it doesn't show in the picture very well) on the one with the orange color at the base.I actually have about 15 of the super white plants from the same batch, but have not figured out where to plant them yet.

I read in a blurb in Palmarums South Florida Palm and Cycad Society sale thread (post #31) where Ellisb was selling it as Nannorrhops possible new species. He showed a picture that I can tell is the same type as my super whites. It definitely has a very different look.

Maybe the super whites are from Arabia?

Hopefully we can get some good info on these.

Matt

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt,

From what I gather, the super whites are from Arabia. I think they used to be called N. Stocksiana, but now they have been lumped together. I once had a N. Stocksiana which was very white but it was never happy in Walnut Creek and it finally died. I don't know if the cold killed it or I did. I may have over watered mine.

Dick

[kristof p]

just bought this one today...this is a very very difficult palm in northern europe. they should be cold hardy enough but it is the wet and humid conditions that kils them up here. i also think they need hot summers to grow good.

i hope this one wil survive? i wil keep it bonedry during the winter and hope the warmest spot in my garden wil be warm enough for this palm to grow a bit...

it has a few shoots and the main stem seems to start branching...

[kristof p]

Matt,

From what I gather, the super whites are from Arabia. I think they used to be called N. Stocksiana, but now they have been lumped together. I once had a N. Stocksiana which was very white but it was never happy in Walnut Creek and it finally died. I don't know if the cold killed it or I did. I may have over watered mine.

Dick

i think the super whites are now called. N. arabica?

there is also a much greener form that comes from higher up the mountains in a more humid climate. this one is called 'var khasmir'...this could be the one for our humid climate. i have some seeds but non have germinated yet.

[iwan]

I have a flat of white (and three in one gal) plants that I got from Kevin Weaver last year. They are all heavily spotted after last winter (low 28F). Several of the liners died. There may be something to them (white variety) not being very cold/damp tolerant. My green/grey ones have much less spotting. Only had about 8" of rain this year. Will see how they recover when the heat kicks in. Kevin said his white ones were Pakistan sourced seed.

Matt,

From what I gather, the super whites are from Arabia. I think they used to be called N. Stocksiana, but now they have been lumped together. I once had a N. Stocksiana which was very white but it was never happy in Walnut Creek and it finally died. I don't know if the cold killed it or I did. I may have over watered mine.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

Thank you for the info and pics Kristof, I hope you have good luck with yours.

Robert, that is exactly when I bought mine from Kevin so I imagine they are siblings. The palm on the left with the orangish stem is from that batch, and I have one other in the ground that both saw apx. 25F and many at or below freezing with around 8 days of light frost. Mine only showed a bit of speckling that you can see in the picture. Only the super white one showed the very minor damage. Definitely not as cold tolerant as the other varieties. Are yours in the ground yet? The ones I have in the ground are 3 time the size of the others that I have left in pots. I need to pot them up or get them in the ground? I have had a few croak in the liners. I think they really want to get in the ground.

Matt

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt,

You might not want to plant to many Nannorrhops as they are an untidy palm when they get older. Once the old leaf stalks dry they become very difficult to clip or saw off. The dried leaf stalk is very fiberous, so I usually cut the old lower fronds off before they dry out.

Old trunks dichotomize and one trunk will have a terminal flower spike while the other is vegitative and eventually it will dichotomize too. Mine has bloomed several times and was loaded with seed, but very few of them were any good. Once they bloom the seeding trunk will die back to the old trunk, but I usually remove them before they die back. You can tell when a trunk is going to bloom as the fronds become progressively smaller and the trunk enlongates rather fast.

My giant once had a trunk that grew 3 heads and the one in the center was a seed trunk.

Dick

[Kris]

Lovely stills of a beautiful palm and dear dick can we all have the pleasure of seeing the visuals of your 30 year old N.R palm ?

Some since links..

http://www.rarepalmseeds.com/shop/NanSil.shtml

http://www.rarepalmseeds.com/shop/NanKas.shtml

Thanks & Love,

Kris

[PalmGuyWC]

Kris,

I'm sorry I don't know how to move pictures around. You can view my giant Nannorrhops under Travel Logs, Dick Douglas Garden. There is a photo of it on page 1 near the end. The photo is about 2 years old, and I just noticed today that it's pushing out another flower spike.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

Matt,

You might not want to plant to many Nannorrhops as they are an untidy palm when they get older. Once the old leaf stalks dry they become very difficult to clip or saw off. The dried leaf stalk is very fiberous, so I usually cut the old lower fronds off before they dry out.

Old trunks dichotomize and one trunk will have a terminal flower spike while the other is vegitative and eventually it will dichotomize too. Mine has bloomed several times and was loaded with seed, but very few of them were any good. Once they bloom the seeding trunk will die back to the old trunk, but I usually remove them before they die back. You can tell when a trunk is going to bloom as the fronds become progressively smaller and the trunk enlongates rather fast.

My giant once had a trunk that grew 3 heads and the one in the center was a seed trunk.

Dick

Hmm, interesting. I have four planted right now, maybe I'll stop at that. No, wait, just one more

I was actually thinking of over pruning one of these to maintain just two or three trunks, but from your info that might not be possible as it will split later, what do you think, could it work?

Matt

[freakypalmguy]

Here are some nice pics of Nannhorrhops

Two of Dick's plants, you can really see what Dick was mentioning about the stems dichotomizing. That main stem is very divided

And her is one from Kevin Weavers garden that I cropped from El Hoagies picture

[ghar41]

Kris,

I'm sorry I don't know how to move pictures around. You can view my giant Nannorrhops under Travel Logs, Dick Douglas Garden. There is a photo of it on page 1 near the end. The photo is about 2 years old, and I just noticed today that it's pushing out another flower spike.

Dick

Couldn't find Dick's Nannorrhops the first time I went to look for it. Then I realized I was standing under it.

Took this a few months back. Rainy...bad quality pic, sorry.

[PalmGuyWC]

Thanks Matt and Glenn for posting the pictures.

Something else I should mention. Nannorrhops has sort of a gnarly trunk, and the old leaf bases are almost impossible to trim off the trunk. I just checked my giant and the trunks are about one foot in diamater and covered with old leaf bases. It will probably take 50 years before they weather off.

I have a couple of smaller ones getting a lot of shade. In the shade he trunks tend to run across the surface of the ground like a rhizome. I've thought about dividing one and moving them to a sunnier area to see what happens. I've heard they move eaisly, but it would be tough digging one up. They come from a rough enviroment, so they are tough palms.

Dick

[iamjv]

Here are two shots of a decent sized Nanno at the San Antonio botanical garden.... Jv

[_Keith]

Kris,

I'm sorry I don't know how to move pictures around. You can view my giant Nannorrhops under Travel Logs, Dick Douglas Garden. There is a photo of it on page 1 near the end. The photo is about 2 years old, and I just noticed today that it's pushing out another flower spike.

Dick

Couldn't find Dick's Nannorrhops the first time I went to look for it. Then I realized I was standing under it.

Took this a few months back. Rainy...bad quality pic, sorry.

Beyond incredible.

[Kris]

Thanks very much for the visuals...Dear Dick,Matt & glenn

very beautiful palm...

Lots of love to you all,

Kris

[Scott]

Love these palms, thanks for this topic!

They seem to be stagnate in the pot, but once planted they really seem to spread out and their leaves get thick.

Looks great!

[PalmGuyWC]

Does anyone else have a photo of their Nannorrhops? There must be a lot in the Mediterranean climates. My giant seems to be an aberration, as I have four and only it has grown to such outrageous preportians. Fairchild Gardens once had some huge Nannorrhops, but they were killed by lethal yellowing. Fairchild still has some growing in the back side of the garden, but they look a little tortured. They bloom but never produce viable seeds. I think it may be a little to hot and humid there for them. There must be some buties growing in S. Calif. Show me.

Dick

[tjwalters]

Here are a few pictures of the FTG palms taken in 1999 (excuse the typo on the images):

Dick: If I recall correctly, these were up front and seemed a bit smaller than yours pictured in #15.

[Brad-Tampa]

Here is one Dad planted years ago, it's slow but seems to be speeding up a little.

[PalmGuyWC]

I remember there was an article some time back in Principes that had some pictures of Nannorrhops growing in habitat. They were pretty sad, weather beaten plants, and it looked like some might be growing in a wadi. Some even had tree branches hung in the fronds from periods when water rushed down the gullys.

My large one has a huge trunk that is going to bloom this year. The trunk is encroaching on a Trithrinax campestris and crowding it. Someone suggested I remove the trunk, but I guess mother nature will take care of that. This is the largest trunk that has ever bloomed for me, so I expect it will have an enormous inflorescence.

Thanks for the pictures Tom and Brad.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

Those are some beauties Tom and Brad.

Brad, The one your Dad planted is really blue. At a quick glance, I would have thought it was a Brahea. Nice. Do you have any idea of it's aproximate age?

Dick, so the large stem that is flowering will die back as you stated above. How long will it take for that stem to start showing it's decline? How long is the part that will die back? Can you just cut off that part as soon as it start showing without damaging the rest of the plant?

[MattyB]

I noticed that they fill a pot with spaghetti roots very quickly so I planted mine out. It was very white when I got it but has since turned a grey/green color since planting out. I mulched around it a lot since I only water that area once every few weeks. I wonder if the winter cool and ground moisture caused it to loose it's white coloration. Anyone else have this loss of the waxy bloom? Mine was definitely the super white Pakistan varitety when I bought it.

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt,

The part that dies back will be 8 or 10 feet long, and I probably will cut off that portion before it dies back and becomes hard. It takes 2 or 3 years before the blooming stem starts to die back. As I stated, they look very untidy holding the old flower stalks. The inflorescence can be over 6 feet long. When a trunk is going to bloom the fronds on that trunk become progressively smaller, and then the terminal flower stalk emerges. Once the flower stalk starts to show, it grows very fast.

It seems to me they waste a lot of energy when they bloom, shedding off such a large trunk and foliage.

Dick

[PalmGuyWC]

Matty,

Mine seem to be more silver in the summer heat, like a lot of other silver palms.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

Thank you for the info Dick, what does the scar look like where the section is removed?

Matty, mine has dulled a bit as well from the winter. I hope it brightens up with some warmth and sun.

[Brad-Tampa]

Matt, Believe it or not the garden log said it was planted in Nov. 1968! Now that is slow, but then alot of things in this landscape seem slow.

[freakypalmguy]

Wow! That is slowww. It's a beauty nonetheless. Thank you Brad.

[Kev Spence]

Loving the nanny shots one that will not grow in the UK despite its cold hardy credentials.

Here is another shot of the FTG palm.

[Scott]

Hey Kev - That one must be very mature. I wonder how old...

[brodklop]

Here is one at Mt Cootha BG in Brisbane. I have seen one at the Palmetum in Townsville which is a lot different than this one.

I just cant find the photo. I'll keep looking

[Kev Spence]

Hey Kev - That one must be very mature. I wonder how old...

Scott a little research on the FTG database reveals this palm was planted in 1970 and so 39 years old ....WOW!

Nannorrhops ritchiana at Fairchild

[PalmGuyWC]

I believe all of my Nannorrhops were planted in 1974 or '75 and they were all 1 gal size. They have grown at varying rates depending on where they were planted. One that gets a lot of shade is still only about 3' high, but retains its silver color in the shade. I was going to move it but it makes a nice color contrast with the dark green Chamaerops growing near it.

As I recall the seedlings are very slow to start growiing and the young roots are very brittle, like spun glass, and they break eaisly.

Matt, I try to cut off the old flower stalk as close to the vegitative trunk as possible. The cut off stub is not nearly as noticeable as the old flower stalk which will remain on the plant for years. It takes a small chain saw to cut them off. You won't have to worry about that for awhile, because it takes about 20 years or more before they start blooming, or at least that's how long it took mine. I think they are much more attractive before they start blooming.

Dick

[ghar41]

Does anyone else have a photo of their Nannorrhops? There must be a lot in the Mediterranean climates. My giant seems to be an aberration, as I have four and only it has grown to such outrageous preportians. Fairchild Gardens once had some huge Nannorrhops, but they were killed by lethal yellowing. Fairchild still has some growing in the back side of the garden, but they look a little tortured. They bloom but never produce viable seeds. I think it may be a little to hot and humid there for them. There must be some buties growing in S. Calif. Show me.

Dick

I bought this one from Phil Nickel, a 2 gallon pot, about 7 or 8 years ago. It was so small, I didnt give it much thought, and planted on a west facing wall that gets late day inland sun. I think it likes it there.

Hey, Im using photobucket now. Cool.

[Kris]

Dear Glenn

Lovely palm & beautiful big sized still,which is really easy on the eyes of the viewer_Spl thanks for uploading still in big size ! I think from now on we all will have the pleasure of viewing your new topics & posts in this format...

Lots of love,

Kris

[swamptreenelly]

Hi,

Does anybody know where I can purchase a Nannorrhops in Northern California for our City Parks?

Thank you,

Nelson Kirk

[ghar41]

Hi,

Does anybody know where I can purchase a Nannorrhops in Northern California for our City Parks?

Thank you,

Nelson Kirk

Golden Gate Palms is close to you. Ive never purchased anything there so I dont know if they carry it.

http://www.goldengatepalms.com/

But Im almost certain Phil Nickel at Nickel Palms in Shafter, Ca (outside of Bakersfield.)will have it. I bought the plant in post #37 there. He offers nice plants at very reasonable prices.

http://www.nickelpalmnursery.com/