Allagoptera caudescens

[Really full garden]

This is my current favorite palm and at this particular moment this plant is about to go pinnate on me.The camera does not capture the beautiful silver underside of the leaf.These were until recently Polyandrococos caudescens.I have mine in mostly bright shade with filtered sun in the early morning.This one is going to be planted in my new highland garden next year.

[Peter Pacific]

  scottgt said:

This is my current favorite palm and at this particular moment this plant is about to go pinnate on me.The camera does not capture the beautiful silver underside of the leaf.These were until recently Polyandrococos caudescens.I have mine in mostly bright shade with filtered sun in the early morning.This one is going to be planted in my new highland garden next year.

Hi, Scott, I hope you're taking lots of "before" shots of your new place. I want to see the "after" shots in 5 years! The A. caudescens is just great. Good Luck. Peter

[Exotic Life]

Hi,

I like them to, specially when they are quite bigger. However this little palm looks very healty, good job anyway!

Robbin

[pg6922]

Mine is on its second pinnate leaf and I have enjoyed watching it grow. This is a very slow growing palm. Mine is in bright shade also. I often wonder how they take to moving them. Mine can spend many more year where it is planted but would be a bit crowded once full grown. BTW, mine has been in the ground since half the size of yours.

Nicely grown specimen you got there.

PG

[Really full garden]

PG, I think that when they have pinnate leaves they are more sun tolerant and can eventually grow in full sun.I planted three at the beach and they slowly declined and died even though each had its own little palm cabana for shade.

[pg6922]

Here ya go.

This is April of 2008 right before I put it in the ground.

and this is August 2009

[Really full garden]

PG yours looks to have developed pinnate leaves while still quite small ( based on the size of the bromeliads).

[Dave H]

  pg6922 said:

Here ya go.

This is April of 2008 right before I put it in the ground.

and this is August 2009

Curious... We have Allagoptera - Araneria / Campestris / Leucocalyx here in full sun in the desert ( Palm Springs, Ca.)... is this a tropical understory Allagoptera ?

Dave

[Really full garden]

  Dave H said:

  pg6922 said:

Here ya go.

This is April of 2008 right before I put it in the ground.

and this is August 2009

Curious... We have Allagoptera - Araneria / Campestris / Leucocalyx here in full sun in the desert ( Palm Springs, Ca.)... is this a tropical understory Allagoptera ?

Dave

Dave.this was Polyandrococos caudescens and was moved in with the Allagopteras.It is from Brasil and is more of a forest palm but will grow into full sun.I doubt it would make it under desert conditions.

[pg6922]

  scottgt said:

PG yours looks to have developed pinnate leaves while still quite small ( based on the size of the bromeliads).

I was thinking how large yours looked still with the large strap. I will miss the strap stage. it looked so neat like that. But alas it must grow. This is about as slow as my Dypsis Fibrosa. Neither are in a hurry to grow up.

I would say that the largest pinnate leaf is about 13 or 14 inches off the ground. And I think the full summer sun hear in SW Florida would be brutal for it at this stage.

[Al in Kona]

While it is true that Allagoptera caudescens is a slow grower (at least prior to trunking), it is a very nice looking palm with the leaves having a silvery underside. I have two growing in the lower garden. Here is a pic showing both, taken last February. The smaller one is to the rear/center/right of the photo.

[peachy]

I bought one of these only a week ago. From what I read they liked the sun so I put it out (still in the pot) in a sunny spot but I knew in a matter of hours it wasnt happy so I moved it back into the shade. Mine is about 30 cm tall from the top of the soil, still entire leafs but has a spear about to open. I am hoping it stays entire a bit longer as it looks so attractive with its heavy little crown of entire leaves.

Peachy

[Al in Kona]

  Al in Kona said:

While it is true that Allagoptera caudescens is a slow grower (at least prior to trunking), it is a very nice looking palm with the leaves having a silvery underside. I have two growing in the lower garden. Here is a pic showing both, taken last February. The smaller one is to the rear/center/right of the photo.

Here is a more recent pic taken just last month. Mine has been in a full open sunny location ever since it became pinate as a small plant. It may help some too that our humidity levels never drop real low here.

[JasonD]

This species always looks to me like a mashup of Parajubaea and Ceroxylon. The new spear is very Ceroxylon-like, and the trunked plant resembles Ceroxylon alpinum. Yet it's cocosoid.

[Brad Mondel]

what is that georgus orange tree in the background?

  Al in Kona said:

  Al in Kona said:

While it is true that Allagoptera caudescens is a slow grower (at least prior to trunking), it is a very nice looking palm with the leaves having a silvery underside. I have two growing in the lower garden. Here is a pic showing both, taken last February. The smaller one is to the rear/center/right of the photo.

Here is a more recent pic taken just last month. Mine has been in a full open sunny location ever since it became pinate as a small plant. It may help some too that our humidity levels never drop real low here.

[Daryl]

These are great palms. There are some very old ones in the Sydney botanical Gardens. They were labeled as Ceroxylon for many years, until (I think) JD visited and verified it was Polyandrococos pectinata (now lumped with caudescens), and now lumped further into Allogoptera.

I have a few growing here and they are slow in pots. One has been in the ground for a while, but has declined over the last two years. The leaves just brown off for no reason, and it looks really ratty. The leaves were 8-9 feet long but now are onlt 4 or 5 feet long...it doesn't seem to want to recover either. Stays nice and green, then the leaves dry up..weird!

Daryl

[Gileno Machado]

Here's mine, planted in the ground a couple years ago after 3 years in a large pot under filtered light, now thriving in almost full sun and some saltspray, in the backyard.

This palm gets watered every other day, loves some clay added to the sandy soil, lots of mulch of any kind and I guess it increased the growth rate considerably in the last months, especially during our winter. The leaves are beautiful, each one unfolding much bigger in size than the previous one, at this point, stiff and elegantly displayed... Snow white underleaf palm, commonly named "coqueiro da palha branca" (white frond coconut palm) or Buri Palm in habitat (east coast of Brazil, bordering Atlantic forest remnants), it is not a commonly cultivated species here, rarely seen in landscaped areas other than botanical collections.

[Gileno Machado]

Here's a nicely grown one, in São Paulo state, SE Brazil:

[Daryl]

That is a much better specimen than my sad thing!

[PalmGuyWC]

Dave from Palm Springs,

You mention you have Allagoptera Leucocalyx. I have inquired about this palm before but got no response, as it must be very rare in the USA. I have a small one in a one gal. size, and it grows at a fair rate, but still has strap fronds. I have an A. araneria which is larger but hardly grows at all for me, maybe one frond a year. How large is your A. leucocalyx and how fast does it grow compaired to the others. Also what's the lowest temp. it has been exposed to?

Thanks,

Dick

[SanDimas]

BUMP.....

any update pics on this beauty?

PS. RIP RD.

[criskt]

New picture!

[SanDimas]

BELLISIMA!

No puedo esperar

a ver mio esa larga.

Que bella.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

What a beauty! I planted one in full sun, no issues so far, they're much faster in full sun.

[criskt]

Old Allagoptera caudences.

[criskt]

Now an old Allagoptera caudences.

[Cindy Adair]

The photos are lovely but of course look nothing like my juvenile that I mistakenly still have labeled as Polyandrococcos caudescens. Believe it or not, this palm has been in the ground 4 years, planted 4/09 from a tiny seedling of course.

Naturally it was subjected to pretty substantial palm abuse. It was (after inspection in Virginia) bare rooted and wrapped up in a box and kept in darkness. Then it was plopped in full sun in Puerto Rico and never watered except by nature and never fertilized or mulched.

Sometimes weeds completely covered it. Then we would arrive and expose it suddenly to full sun again. It did get some leaf burn, but grew out of that. Then when the cows tired of chewing on my Verschaffeltias last year, they ate a couple of leaves of this little one for dessert.

It's amazing I have any live palms at all isn't it? The leaves are truly silver underneath and I'd be fine with it even if it never grew up as it's quite nice now.

BTW, see how there is only soil around it and no weeds? That was done in selected areas entirely by machete carefully avoiding any beloved plants and amazingly quickly! Not by us, but by a native Puerto Rican who was able to come several mornings and help out last month. He is amazing!