Yesterday I decided to clean off all the old dried leaf bases from the lower stem of my D lutescens, and on the left hand stem I found something a little disturbing! Theres a long hole there with all crumb like material near the mouth. I also saw thrips crawling around the base of the stems, but I didnt think these were harmful on this scale(thought they ate only the leaf surface)

On the upside the palm does look much better without those old  dried 'onion skins', and it shows good colour near the rootbase too!

The two stems:

the hole:

healthy looking right hand stem:

By the way, where would the crownshaft form on this palm?

Cheers

Larry

I checked tonight after moving it to a more open position now that its geting too big for its spot, and more crumbly stuff coming out.

Hi Larry,  I don't know what the heck that hole is.  Hopefully it remains benign.  The crownshaft is the whole smooth green area there from the petioles (or leaf stems) down to the roots.  By the way, I'd add a bit more soil to cover up where those roots are coming out of the stem.  This added moisture will also help the old leaf bases rot off and pull away more easily.

Thanks Matty!

So basicaly the crownshatft is the area marked out in yellow here,(dont all palms have this area?) and I should put fresh soil to the level marked in blue?

Thing is, the soil is pretty much domed as it is,would have to wait till the repot in the spring.

Also, those old leaves were pretty much covering up those strut roots . Did I do a bad thing by removing them? I just thought they might harbour mould and creepy crawlies.

Yeah, add the soil up to the blue line when you repot, it's not urgent.  Not all palms have a crownshaft.  The crownshaft is formed by the leaf bases tightly wrapping themselves all they way around the stem.  Dypsis lutescens does this nicely.  An example of a non crownshafted palm would be a Pigmy Date (Phoenix roebellini) or Queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana), or Kentia (Howea forsteriana).  The leaf bases on those just attach without wrapping all the way around.  In some palms it's a little hard to tell if it has a true crownshaft or not.  See RLR's post about crownshafts in the FAQ's section for more info.

(MattyB @ Aug. 05 2006,03:06)

QUOTE

An example of a non crownshafted palm would be a Pigmy Date (Phoenix roebellini) or Queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana), or Kentia (Howea forsteriana).  The leaf bases on those just attach without wrapping all the way around.  

Aah, thank you Matty!

I thought my palm was Howea forsteriana at first and members of GW told me its not but I couldnt see why, and noone would tell me a way of distinguishing D lutescens from H forsteriana-now I know how!