Maximum Palm Height

[LilikoiLee]

I've heard a lot of conflicting interesting opinions since catching palm fever 18 months ago. Fortunately many of them have been cleared up but here's one that hasn't: A palm nursery person (no one on PT) told me that palms die when they reach maximum height because they must keep putting out new fronds to live. Is this true? I haven't heard or read this anywhere else.

Thanks,

Lee

[displaced_floridian]

It varies with the type of palm. In Florida, max height is limited due to strong winds, i.e. hurricanes. I think when a palm gets too tall it is more easily blown down or is a target for lightning. Coconut trees in FL rarely get more than 60 ft tall, whereas deep in the tropics, below the hurricane belt, they can get 80-100 feet tall.

[palmislandRandy]

How about the ones that die after flowering (hapaxanthy)? We loose most tall palms in South Florida to lightning.

Randy

[DoomsDave]

L-Lee . . .

You ask a recurring, but wonderful, question!

Recurring, because no one really knows for sure, in all cases.

Some palms have a fixed life span and die when they go to seed. Caryotas, Corypha, etc. Some of those can get HUGE.

Others, just grow and grow and grow, and eventually stop.

IN places like Florida, with lots of lightning, palms that get really tall usually die when they're struck by lightning.

In places like California, they get so tall that the cells at the base develop thick walls to hold all that mass above, and, they get too thick in the walls to carry water to the crown from the roots, and the palm dies over a number of years, just peters out. That's what's starting to happen to a lot of Washies on the West Side of LA that are 100 years old or more, and 100-150 feet tall.

Redwood trees only(!!) get to be about 500 feet tall before they, too, suffer the same problem. The key difference is they die back and regrow, from thousands of new, albeit slightly starved buds. The palm, with one bud, dies, alas.

[LilikoiLee]

Thanks for the answers! I didn't realize there were so many reasons.

So, So-Cal Dave, do those palms that stop producing new fronds continue to live or is the production of leaves a necessity for their survival?

Lee

[DoomsDave]

Thanks for the answers! I didn't realize there were so many reasons.

So, So-Cal Dave, do those palms that stop producing new fronds continue to live or is the production of leaves a necessity for their survival?

Lee

They stop producing, period. Leaves, seeds, everything. The growth bud dies, and the palm with it. It gets all pointy, like a pencil, literally, and it twists all over as if it's trying to escape fate. Sad, but inevitable.

[tropicbreeze]

I had lightning take out 6 of my tall coconuts, their Use by Date expired very rapidly. I can't imagine palms growing for ever, so logically there must be an end point, one way or another.

These are the fried coconuts.

Looks a bit bleak.

Don't know what took these out, they don't seem overly tall/old.

The tallest of these are considered to be up to 300 years old.

Still standing out above the crowd.

[BS Man about Palms]

Many of may faves may only grow for 30-50 years.

By then I;ll have new favorites!

[Walter John]

may faves may ? I suppose so

[Dypsisdean]

Lee,

Some of the tallest are just down the road from you.

http://www.palmpedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1448

[realarch]

That pic is just awesome Dean, that is one tall Pritchardia!

[BS Man about Palms]

may faves may ? I suppose so

Well, I GUESS the word "my" would have worked better there.....

[LilikoiLee]

Thanks for the answers! I didn't realize there were so many reasons.

So, So-Cal Dave, do those palms that stop producing new fronds continue to live or is the production of leaves a necessity for their survival?

Lee

They stop producing, period. Leaves, seeds, everything. The growth bud dies, and the palm with it. It gets all pointy, like a pencil, literally, and it twists all over as if it's trying to escape fate. Sad, but inevitable.

Thanks for all the info, Dave. A bit of bad news for me though, as I have been recently been collecting small and dwarf sized palms to plant under our larger ones. It seems that given the same growth rate as a larger palm, the smaller guys are going to die sooner.

Lee

[LilikoiLee]

Mahalo (thanks) everyone for your responses.

Tropicbreeze - unbelievable. Did one strike take all of them or were there multiple strikes? How tall were they?

I like your positive attitude BS Man, but I don't believe you won't have new favorites until 30 or 40 years from now. Or are you saying you'll be on your umpteeth set of favorites by then?

Thanks for the link Dean. Those are incredible! Sorry I missed that hike.

Lee

[garrin]

From observing growth of palms of many types over the years in many locales, I have conluded that the ultimate age and height have much to do with the local climate, the species, and the care given. Coconuts were mentioned, and I have seen a lot of evidence in the tropics (and subtropics) that lightning is the most usual killer of the tallest ones. I have seen single Caryotas amazingly tall before flowering, and I have seen some of the same species that have flowered and died less that 20 feet tall -- usually from lack of water and fertilizer. There is at least one coconut here in Hilo which has gone way beyond the published maximum height. One is over 103 feet and still bearing coconuts in full quantity. I think it is because it hardly ever sees lightning, almost never any wind, has a water table only a few feet down and is in a climate so humid that it takes less energy for the tree to keep raising liquids up so high. There is a valley in New Caledonia containing Roystonea oleraceas in great abundance much taller than usual; the locals attribute this to the lack of lightning and hurricanes there.

[LilikoiLee]

From observing growth of palms of many types over the years in many locales, I have conluded that the ultimate age and height have much to do with the local climate, the species, and the care given. Coconuts were mentioned, and I have seen a lot of evidence in the tropics (and subtropics) that lightning is the most usual killer of the tallest ones. I have seen single Caryotas amazingly tall before flowering, and I have seen some of the same species that have flowered and died less that 20 feet tall -- usually from lack of water and fertilizer. There is at least one coconut here in Hilo which has gone way beyond the published maximum height. One is over 103 feet and still bearing coconuts in full quantity. I think it is because it hardly ever sees lightning, almost never any wind, has a water table only a few feet down and is in a climate so humid that it takes less energy for the tree to keep raising liquids up so high. There is a valley in New Caledonia containing Roystonea oleraceas in great abundance much taller than usual; the locals attribute this to the lack of lightning and hurricanes there.

Very interesting Garrin; that all makes sense. I've heard that the coconuts along Hilo Bay are the oldest palms in Hawaii. Do you know, by chance, how old they are? We have some that are more than 30 years old (planted by the previous owner). They are the only tall palms we have at this point so we would hate to lose them. Fortunately they are healthy (even though they are on a giant blue rock mound) and we don't get a lot of lightning in Kona.

Lee

[Dave-Vero]

Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens and scrub palmetto, Sabal etonia both may reach ages exceeding 500 years, as suggested by Warren Abrahamson.

Our cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto) are probably age limited by fire damage and, for trees growing in swamps, by the trunk getting too long.

Cultivated, Florida has some quite old Canary Island date palms and a few Washingtonias high enough to be worthy of Los Angeles. Locally, they are all somewhat off-vertical due to hurricanes.

The immense Jubaea at Kew was grown from seed, so its exact age (1840s?) is known.

[Takil-Explorer]

In the botanical garden of Rio de Janeiro you get an avenue with bvery tall Roystonea oleraceas. One of the nicest palms I guess.

Alexander

[LilikoiLee]

Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens and scrub palmetto, Sabal etonia both may reach ages exceeding 500 years, as suggested by Warren Abrahamson.

Our cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto) are probably age limited by fire damage and, for trees growing in swamps, by the trunk getting too long.

Cultivated, Florida has some quite old Canary Island date palms and a few Washingtonias high enough to be worthy of Los Angeles. Locally, they are all somewhat off-vertical due to hurricanes.

The immense Jubaea at Kew was grown from seed, so its exact age (1840s?) is known.

WOW!

Lee

[basilios]

On the grounds of the National Garden of Athens visitors can still see the row of washingtonia filiferas that the first queen of Greece, Amalia, planted between 1845 and 1850. Documents of the era confirm that those trees were already mature and quite tall by then, and there were brought to the garden from various sources, mostly from Sudan and Egypt, but some of them were also grown in private gardens at various places in Greece and were uprooted to join the queen's collection. In the same garden there are also a number of very old CIDPs from the same era. Here;s a link to check the washies, probably around 200 years old by now :

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lITpRLx6_9o/R9GWYvFJj_I/AAAAAAAACr0/oA0M5a4llow/s1600-h/%C3%8E%C2%95%C3%8E%C2%B9%C3%8E%C2%BA%C3%8F%C2%8C%C3%8E%C2%BD%C3%8E%C2%B1+1511.jpg

Edited November 2, 2010 by basilios