Can anyone gve me a quick lesson on what to look for to positively ID a Coconut (in roughly the 7 gallon size) as either a Malayan or a Maypan?

Also....have any of you guys heard of Golden Maypans being sold?  A local nursery says they have them and I have not yet heard of them.  All the Maypans I have seen have been green varieties.

Thanks for the help!

Buehler.....Buehler....Buehler......

I was going to bring up the same topic... I just purchased two coconut seedlings (in preparation for losing the ones I'm already growing due to the SoCal freeze).  One is from Home Depot and clearly a Golden Malayan, but the other looks quite a bit different - for one it doesn't have the yellow coloring, and seems to have a deeper green... below are pics of the 2... any thoughts as to the larger seedlings type??

Golden...

....other.... maybe a tall variety???

BTW - I haven't heard of a golden maypan, but that's certainly no indication that they don't exist...

Buehler.....Buehler....Buehler......

Larry,

One would think that with all the attention paid to dypsis. One could get a comment or two on a palm tree that epitomizes PALM TREES! ???

Oh well I guess not, if I knew anything I would tell you. Suffice it say if it has nuts I can tell you it's a coconut!(maybe)

AS in SA,

The Home Depot sprout is from the Plant Source in San Diego, but they can't even tell me where they imported them from - they did import them, but can't say if from Florida or if from Hawaii.  I have an identical nut in the 2G pot that you have, and it has orange-yellow colored petioles, much like a pair of Hawaiian nuts that I have.   They grow slower than the very green Jamaican tall that I have (from So. Fl.), and the petioles are definitely green, like yours.  Your green sprout looks quite healthy - is it kept indoors, or how are you getting it through your 47-50°F nights?  I am currently cold framing my 4 sprouts and a 6 year old in a 15G container, along with my Chambeyronia and a few other items (pineapple, travelers, purple kings, areca, etc.) with limited heat at night (I'm keeping the root systems at 65°F or better).

Regards,

Doug Gavilanes

Garden Grove, CA.

Larry and Allen:

I wish I could help you. I've been growing coconuts of many different varieties for the last 15 years but here in Brazil they have different names. The smaller seedling looks like a dwarf species and I'd expect it to start showing character split leaves from now on. The taller specimen looks like my hybrid seedlings (they keep entire fronds for a longer time) but it is virtually impossible to assure what the type is, at this early stage. And still, some shade grown seedlings may have wider leaves anyway.

gavilan1,

I'm keeping both of them indoors currently, although I'll put them both out during the warmer days for some sun...

I do that on weekends when I am home (so that I can move them around to chase the sun) and am sure that I won't forget them out.  When they get bigger, it's easier to burn them in direct sun - my 6 year old finally got a day's worth of sun after being cold framed forever, and the fronds got a little burned, so it's staying in the cold frame until I take it down in April or May, then it's getting partial shade to medium sun for the next few years until it gets above 8 feet or so and gets its own full sun (yes, I know that this is considered overly optimistic, to put it mildly).  Hopefully we won't have another freeze for another 20 years or so...  Attached is a photo of two Jamaican tall nuts and two alleged Hawaiian talls (alleged on the "tall" part).  The Jamaican growing on its end finally met its demise - you shouldn't grow a nut on its end - just not natural...it only grew so far, then dried out.  That's why I added one of the HD nuts that magically appeared at the Garden Grove HD.

Regards,

Doug Gavilanes

Garden Grove, CA.

Can anyone ID this new Coconut I just bought?

I was told it was a Maypan.  I bought a couple of them that were a little beat up but for 15 bucks took a chance.

It definitely doesnt look like a Malayan, so my guess is that Maypan hybrid (or a Tall) are what it is?  

Doesn't look like Larry ever got a reply to this, plus I'm starting to see different varieties available here without good labeling. How about we revive this thread with more pictures and as many positive IDs as possible?

-Brian

Well I'm convinced 90% of the growers really have no idea, they just tell you they are a LY resistant variety and really have no idea.

Maypan's are hybrids of Mayan's and Panamanian Talls.Maypan's do not reproduce.I know there are green and gold Mayans.I see no reason why a Maypan could not result from a gold Mayan and be technically a gold Maypan.This is based upon very little knowledge whatsoever and in no way addresses your question of determining variety at a very young age.I think we need some expert testimony!

My experience with Maypans is they came highly touted as a tall Coconut that was resistant to LY.In other words similar to the old Jamaican Talls.The ones in our area are tall but also much thicker than the Jamaican Tall,which are quite thin in the trunk.Interesting subject that I would like to know more about.

If they were only DYPSIS nucifera!

Then you couldn't stop people from disscussing the minute variations, and differences of these palms!

Redant is right. Most seed is local collected and the guys picking them up don't even know there are varieties!

Maypans are man made hybrids that require many percise steps to produce. They DO NOT come true to seed! As far as I know NONE are being produced in Jamacia any more. It is important to mention too that NO varieties have been shown to be LY resistant over time so all the BS from nurserymen is just that. Much of my information comes from the coconut seed board in Jamacia where most of the Malayn AND Maypans HAVE DIED from LY.

When you grow them from seed it is a crap shoot as to who's the mama and who's the daddy. The good news is that with so many varieties in landscapes now we see some very nice color variations and some dwarfs with many color variations. Some varieties are morphalogically identifiable (what they look like) from size, fruit shape, color and this is a handle on the vaariety but nothing is written in stone unless the seed is from a known source where only that variety exists for many miles.

If cocnuts from Florida are showing up in California then watch out for LY. It kills Cannaries quickly not to mention many other species. One good thing may be that the vector (a small insect) may not spread the disease in California. We would need an entymologist to let us know if midus crudis is in Cali.

I have seen some coconut varieties that were introduced to South Florida to study LY resistance that are very cool and their offspring is sometime just like the mother. Then again the same guy selling thoes has hybrids so....What can I say, sexually, cocnuts are active? When the "tall" variation is dominant then the palm will seem to grow faster and visa versa. Color in a tall variety is a nice trait as most of them seem to be green, more or less. Some are bronze but it is rare to see yellow. Fruit shape is also very variable and some tall fruit have the same shape as dwarfs so that trait is probably not dominant.

One variety that seems to be easy to get a handle on is "Malayan Yellow" (Also know as gold). It has VERY yellow petioles and a healthy one is very attractive. Unfortunatly here in So Florida yellow color scares away many people because they think it has Lethal Yellow. Bum deal.

BTW a great story was told to me by another nurseryman that looked at some supposed Jamacian Certified malayan coconuts for sale in a So Fla. nursery. He was up on all the recent coconut imports from Jamacia and knew that they were delivered in burlap bags. When he toured the "back side" of the nursery and asked if they had any leftover bags from the cocnuts and the labor guys said "what bags these things come off the back of a pickup truck". Enough said?

Funny how they vary in different parts of the world. Over here in Oz, a lot of the tall ones have bronze petioles or orange petioles. The more you look the more variety you find, not only in petiole colour, but nut colour, nut shape, nut size, crown shape, crown density, leaf colour, leaf form and trunk diameter and trunk height. I really like the look of the dark green form that has dark green petioles, dark green nuts and really dark green leaflets. It looks really solid and healthy compared to a lot of other coconuts. I have a variety at home with pale yellow petioles and it is really cold tender compared to others. In northern Oz, they grow a lot of Golden Malay Dwarfs, and they really do appear as dwarfs, with trunks only 6" thick and fine droopy leaves. They look different to the malay dwarfs in Florida. Maybe we have a different variety that has been incorrectly named?

Coconuts are fascinating in so many ways.

Daryl

I'm glad to see this discussion. In SW Florida, its easy to take them for granted. Many harry home owners think they are messy and dangerous and will remove them. It really is interesting to see how the Cocos differ in variety and form.

This time of year is really neat, cause with over 400 miles of Canals here in Cape Coral, its fun to look for sprouting seeds floating along the canal banks. I have found 3 this month so far. Some of them are completely submerged and sprouting and sending down roots under water.

Most people in Florida have never even heard of a Dypsis...they just call it an "areca palm" but if Coconuts grew like weeds in California, I'm sure Dypsis would be less interesting.

I stopped trying to figure out what the differences are and just enjoy how beautiful they are. It really is an amazing palm.

PG

Ken, I think you nailed it.No one knows for some years if a Coconut is LY resistant.Ten years after you have planted it and it develops LY,who do you call?

Who knows if any of these varieties are truly LY resistant?Is there any science on this?It seems like one big moving Con game.I love Jamaican Talls and appreciate the fact that innoculation allows us 60 footers in our area.

As far as I was aware the Malayan dwarf and Maypan hybrids were highly resistant to lethal yellowing when the Maypans were first developed (in the 1960s?). More recently the phytoplasma that causes LY seems to have overcome their resistance, much like various human diseases have overcome some antibiotics.

Being an F1 hybrid, I'd expect the offspring of a Maypan to be highly variable (some looking like the dwarf parent and some like the tall).

Due to LY, I began to innoculate all of my coconuts with tetracycline....a chemical that has shown SOME promise to keep LY at bay. No guarantee though. But this is a tedious process which includes drilling holes in the palm trunk, plugging with an "IV" and mixing up solution. I finally gave up and decided to wing it. Go figure...Hurricane Wilma took out 3 of them anyway. I have since planted some mystery coconuts in their spots.

Hands down, unequivically, my favorite palm!!!!

As Rick says, inoculating with teracycline is tedious work and somewhat expensive. It also makes ugly black stains on the trunks as it bleeds out of the drilled holes. Most people give up after a couple of years as it must be done on a regular schedule and it's just not worth all the labor and expense.

Paul Drummond, who was an expert on coconuts, did a lot of study on the subject, and in fact, he is the person who first discovered LY in some coconuts growing in the vicinity of the Miami Int. Airport. He reported it to the state aggriculture dept. and it fell on deft ears, as they were more interested in the two big crops in Fla. at the time, citrus and timber trees. Paul had been to Jamaica and seen the thousands of coconuts affected there.

Jamaica first, then Cuba, then a few trees in Key West, and it seemed to work it's way up the keys to Miami. As popular as coconuts were in Florida, it would probably have been impossible to contain the disease, and it's easy enough to transport coconuts from an infected area.

As far as identifying coconuts when they are young, it's almost impossible, except it's not to hard to identify a green, yellow, or orange dwarf Malay as the color shows up early in the petioles. They usually bare nuts at an early age. It used to be thought the Malays were much more resistant to LY than the others, but maybe wilth mutations of the disease they are more susceptible now.

It was found that midus crudis, a leaf hopper, and the vector of the disease lives in St. Augustine grass, and guess which is the most popular grass in Florida? St. Augustine. Paul had a theory that if you could keep the grass from growing around the coconuts, that it might reduce the chance of a palm from becoming infected, but I don't know if that's true or not.

Dick

All I know is that my yard is a LY time-bomb. Thanks to the previous owner I have about half the trees on the LY susceptible list in my yard, including some large Pandanus spp. which will kill me to see destroyed by the disease. When the day comes that I get he LY, I plan to remove most of the susceptible trees (about 40) and replant with a different spp.. I am curious what some of you think would be a good tree to replace the very tropical looking c.nucifera's. I have considered Syagrus amara and Beccariophoenix madagascariensis as possible replacements. The hard part is that I do not know of anyone that has these in any decent sizes. I have also thought of using Royals grown at an angle too. I have a double that looks fairly tropical.

Rick do you have any fear of your Hurricane Palms contracting LY?

Wow...heres an old topic brought back to life!

The Coconuts in my original post were planted out sometime last year and are now rather robust looking specimens. They do not look like Malayans to my novice eyes.

Also, my father has one of the palms I originally mentioned was being called a "Golden Maypan". This palm has realy exploded in growth and has a very stout look to it. It too does not look like the typical Malayan to me.

Ill try and take some updated pics and see if any guesses can be made on exactly what they might be.

Yes, there are many times that I think that LY is on the verge in my garden. I have thought about LY in my hurricane palms (Dictyosperma), but if the late Paul Drummond's theory is correct, and I have no grass at all, then my chances are reduced. Of course, my neighbors on both sides have ALL sod, so I think my possibilities are as good as anyone's at this point.

Remember that there are tons of species are technically on the LY list, but these have been injected with the virus in the lab and they have come down with LY. In real life, I have never seen LY in a Livistona chinensis, Caryota mitis, etc.

I am just keeping my fingers crossed. I think the chances of me being blasted by another hurricane are much better than LY.

Rick,

With the huge expanse of peaked windows across the back of your house, if you ever get even a Cat 1 hurricane with an East wind, your house is toast. and that's not to mention the surge from the river. A sodden thought, I know......sorry. What the heck, we all live on the edge. The Big One is coming to California sooner or later. A 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward fault would the level the SF Bay Area. It would make Katrina look like a cake walk. The Ygnacio valley where I live is alluvial soil and it would shake like jello. The palms would probably be the only things left standing.

Dick

I

This time of year is really neat, cause with over 400 miles of Canals here in Cape Coral, its fun to look for sprouting seeds floating along the canal banks. I have found 3 this month so far. Some of them are completely submerged and sprouting and sending down roots under water.

PG

my son found this palm as a tiny sprout floating in the river behind my house 6 years ago, it's a monster unknown species.

You ARE aware that is a coconut, right? I can't tell the cultivar either. But it IS a Cocos nucifera to be certain.

You ARE aware that is a coconut, right? I can't tell the cultivator either. But it IS a Cocos nucifera to be certain.

Yes, I should have said cultivator, not species.

If they were only DYPSIS nucifera!

Then you couldn't stop people from disscussing the minute variations, and differences of these palms!

agree...

I have one green petiole (from small coconut) and an orange petiole (from large coconut) and would love to know more about them. I bought then from my local farmers type markets with just a sprout popping up out of each nut.

Did you know that Cocos nucifera is endemic to Madagascar ?

"By the time, beccariophoenix, she'll be rising"

Once upon a time, there were only the Jamaican Tall coconuts in Floriduh. Then, after the LY invasion in the '70s, came the Malayan Dwarfs (which really are not dwarfs but medium sized coconut palms). These were the green malayan (by far the most common) the yellow malayan (which had its' problems as Ken stated) and the golden malayan (an orange colored petiole and nut that really was striking, but relatively rare. We called them Golden, but I understand that elsewhere they were simply called "red"). A few years later the Maypan was starting to get popular. The maypan usually was amber with large nuts, and grew to almost twice the size of the malayans. The malayans would start fruiting (nutting?) at 3 to five years and the maypans started about 7 years old. I understand that coconut groves were planted with both varieties because the malayans started early to give the planter an earlier cash crop but the maypans held more nuts and were ultimately more profitable.

Fast forward 3 decades and all of these varieties have mixed up so much that there is no way to positively ID a variety. As far as a substitute for coconuts, there is none. I think you should just wait a year or so and replace the dead coconut with a new juvenile coconut. In my opinion, LY seems to come in waves. It burns through a neighborhood and then is gone. I have seen where coconuts and Adonidias get to very large size before they succomb to LY so if you like the look, just plant them again. Besides, in good conditions they are fast as hell.

Jerry

Did you know that Cocos nucifera is endemic to Madagascar ?

"By the time, beccariophoenix, she'll be rising"

When we were in San Jose for the Biennial, I met with an IPS member (he didn't attend the Biennial) who is a coconut hybridizer and lives here in Costa Rica. He used to export coconuts to Honduras and other countries for coconut production. He even exported to collectors and nurseries in FL for a while, but said it was too much of a hassle exporting them to the US so he stopped doing that a long time ago. He told me that most of the big tall coconuts on Manuel Antonio beach are Pacific Talls. I see a lot of the Malayans and the orange varieties growing nearby so who knows what hybrids are growing now. I should try and get him to join PalmTalk. He would be a wealth of information.

You can definitely see differences in many of the coconuts growing around here. I believe this to be an example of a Pacific Tall. They all seem to have a bulging trunk at the bottom, well spaced and pronounced leaf scars, they carry more fronds in the crown and the fronds do not twist as much as in the Malayans or other dwarf varieties. Plus the fruits are much larger and more oblong. The dwarf varieties here do not have fat bases, the leaf scars are much closer together and the fronds all have a pronounced twist to them.

Base of Pacific Tall

Trunk detail

Looking up into the crown

A sprouted coconut collected from this tree planted in a 5 gal pot

Heres a group of Pacific Talls (or maybe hybrids?) growing on the beach

Here's the yellow/orange variety. The petioles and fruit are very colorful.

And I think this is a Pacific Tall. Sometimes the coconuts fall before they are fully developed and these small ones occasionally sprout. I think this is the smallest one I have ever found. It almost fit into the palm of my hand!

Another Pacific Tall growing in the shade along the beach. I love how the petioles stretch in shade

And here are some of the dwarf's growing on the property for comparison

This is what we call Golden Malay Dwarf in Oz. Is this different to those in Florida? Are they maybe a different cultivar? Jerry said that the ones in Florida aren't really dwarfs.

Daryl

Just like many other palms, I believe all the coconut varieties can suffer from stunted growth in less than ideal conditions, even here in SW Florida. Some of the the malay dwarf here can get huge and some look like a true dwarf. Many get that pinched neck look. I have heard that a malay dwarf can still get to 60ft. I have seen 3 year old Coconut palms as tall as 1 year old coconuts. It all depends on fert and irrigation. SW FL's dry season is long and we can go months with only trace amounts of water.

I see the orange/golden coconuts occassionally, but they are definitely more rare in SW Fl.

And I agree with just replanting the palms that die from LY. Coconuts grow so fast, its worth putting a new one in its place.

As with many, it is by far my favorite palm.

PG