Spontaneous natural jubaea x queen hybrids???

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

A batch of jubaea seedlings included a number of oddball jubaea that look like they have a different species for the pollen donor. Parent female tree is unknown, lost in the shuffle, but possible sources include San Diego Mission Bay trees and Monterey Bay trees. They are also 3x the speed of the regular jubaea. Obviously this was not an intentional cross. I have at least a dozen of these.

Here's my guess: it almost looks like queen father. It doesn't look like butia is the parent, and butia would be an unlikely spontaneous donor since there just aren't many butia around, but there are thousands of eager queen palm pollen donors. Any thoughts? Petioles are 100% unarmed, and the trunk on these has the tell tale ligules that Patric's intentional JxS hybrids have.

Note the tell tale ligules on the trunk which also exist on Patric's intentional JxS hybrids. And note the absence of both the armed butia petiole and even the furry jubaea petiole.

[gyuseppe]

yes Axel , it seems to have Syagrus romanzoffiana in it, you're lucky

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Thanks Giuseppe, I sure hope you are right. If it really is JxS then it suggests that this is indeed a cross that can happen spontaneously without manual cross pollination. I won't have to wait so long for my JxS from patric to grow to some size, the one I got from him turns out to be super slow, not sure why, my guess is hybrids are hit and miss. These specimens are so much faster.

[Gtlevine]

They look nothing like my Jubaea Syagrus. Patric told me this cross is incredibly dificult to make, so thinking you can have a batch of them that occured naturally is not likely. If you don't know the source of parent plant it may be possible Jubaea is not even the parent on these. You will just have to wait a few years and re-assess.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I am open to suggestions on what the pollen parent might be but doubting the jubaea female parent is not useful. This hybrid came from jubaea seeds, the rest came true to seed. It's a jubaea female, but unknown pollen donor. That much is known. As of right now it looks like queen. No other parent would produce ligules like that. But perhaps it's something else. Jubaea does spontaneously hybridize, there are lots of examples of it.

Given the high degree of variation in morphology between the various hybrids, you have to rely on specific keys like ligules and other distinct features to ID a hybrid. Any general statements as to their appearance isn't going to be very accurate. I doubt jubaea x syagrus from other parent specimens would look identical to those from patric. Even mules from different hybridizers look totally different.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

As a disclaimer, I am not sure of any of what I posted above except for the fact that it's a jubaea female parent. I would love to see close ups of any other jubaea x queen hybrids to see what they look like, petiole close up is the most useful, plus what the crown looks like, i.e. ligules versus netting, that type of stuff.

I went looking around for a picture of a specimen that's closer in age to some of mine. Here is one of Patric's JxS that looks similar: (From http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/31843-updated-jubaea-x-syagrus/ post #40)

Here are more pictures of the smaller 5g hybrid in question:

Close up of trunk:

[trioderob]

"Parent female tree is unknown, lost in the shuffle, but possible sources include San Diego Mission Bay trees and Monterey Bay trees."

How do you know that ?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

"Parent female tree is unknown, lost in the shuffle, but possible sources include San Diego Mission Bay trees and Monterey Bay trees."

How do you know that ?

OK, now I understand why Gary said what he said. Perhaps I should have been more clear. The specific jubaea parent specimen is unknown, i,e, I don't know if the jubaea seeds came from San Diego or Monterey Bay, but I do know they were jubaea seeds. The seedlings are from jubaea seeds, that much is known. In general, I like to keep track of the specific tree seeds are collected from. For example, I know my blue jubaea came from Kim Hammond's blue jubaea trees (Good Earth Nursery in Fallbrook.) She has two blue jubaea in her garden that produce the seeds for her blue jubaea specimens. In the case of this hybrid, it would be nice which jubaea tree specifically they came from.

[Gtlevine]

I am open to suggestions on what the pollen parent might be but doubting the jubaea female parent is not useful. This hybrid came from jubaea seeds, the rest came true to seed. It's a jubaea female, but unknown pollen donor. That much is known. As of right now it looks like queen. No other parent would produce ligules like that. But perhaps it's something else. Jubaea does spontaneously hybridize, there are lots of examples of it.

Given the high degree of variation in morphology between the various hybrids, you have to rely on specific keys like ligules and other distinct features to ID a hybrid. Any general statements as to their appearance isn't going to be very accurate. I doubt jubaea x syagrus from other parent specimens would look identical to those from patric. Even mules from different hybridizers look totally different.

You said parent female tree is unknown in your first post. I assume then that you cannot verify if other seed was mixed into the batch and possibly Jubaea female was not uniform in the seed. So doubting the Jubaea female is in fact useful and a possibility.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I am open to suggestions on what the pollen parent might be but doubting the jubaea female parent is not useful. This hybrid came from jubaea seeds, the rest came true to seed. It's a jubaea female, but unknown pollen donor. That much is known. As of right now it looks like queen. No other parent would produce ligules like that. But perhaps it's something else. Jubaea does spontaneously hybridize, there are lots of examples of it.

Given the high degree of variation in morphology between the various hybrids, you have to rely on specific keys like ligules and other distinct features to ID a hybrid. Any general statements as to their appearance isn't going to be very accurate. I doubt jubaea x syagrus from other parent specimens would look identical to those from patric. Even mules from different hybridizers look totally different.

You said parent female tree is unknown in your first post. I assume then that you cannot verify if other seed was mixed into the batch and possibly Jubaea female was not uniform in the seed. So doubting the Jubaea female is in fact useful and a possibility.

Gary, I just addressed that after Rob pointed out the error in my initial statement. What I meant to say is that I don't know which specific jubaea tree these hybrids came from. The hybrids came from a batch of jubaea seeds collected from various specimen trees in Mission Bay and around Monterey Bay. It would be nice to know which specific jubaea produced the hybrids, that's all. But the seeds themselves that produced the hybrids came from a jubaea tree, that much is known.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I am open to suggestions on what the pollen parent might be but doubting the jubaea female parent is not useful. This hybrid came from jubaea seeds, the rest came true to seed. It's a jubaea female, but unknown pollen donor. That much is known. As of right now it looks like queen. No other parent would produce ligules like that. But perhaps it's something else. Jubaea does spontaneously hybridize, there are lots of examples of it.

Given the high degree of variation in morphology between the various hybrids, you have to rely on specific keys like ligules and other distinct features to ID a hybrid. Any general statements as to their appearance isn't going to be very accurate. I doubt jubaea x syagrus from other parent specimens would look identical to those from patric. Even mules from different hybridizers look totally different.

You said parent female tree is unknown in your first post. I assume then that you cannot verify if other seed was mixed into the batch and possibly Jubaea female was not uniform in the seed. So doubting the Jubaea female is in fact useful and a possibility.

Gary, I just addressed that after Rob pointed out the error in my initial statement. What I meant to say is that I don't know which specific jubaea tree these hybrids came from. The hybrids came from a batch of jubaea seeds collected from various specimen trees in Mission Bay and around Monterey Bay. It would be nice to know which specific jubaea produced the hybrids, that's all. But the seeds themselves that produced the hybrids came from a jubaea tree, that much is known.

This is exactly the reason why it's always important to not only track the species name of the parent, but one should also make a note on the tag about what actual tree produced the seeds. I have the same issue with brahea brandegeei hybrids from the Huntington. I purchased a half a dozen brahea brandegeei from Joe in San Diego from seeds he collected at the Huntington and two of them turned into true brandegeei, the rest look like hybrids between edulis and some look like hybrids with aculeata.

In cultivation, spontaneous hybridization is much more common than we think. There was a batch of spontaneous jubaea x butia floating around for a while even though no intentional cross was made. Jason of Floragrubb had some of these for sale, I don't recall where he got them, but they were unintended hybrids. So there is a lot of precedent for a lot of natural jubaea hybridization to take place much like there is with brahea.

[Gtlevine]

I missed that with Rob.

Did you collect the seeds yourself?

I will tell you where there may be a problem with the Jubaea x Syagrus theory. Before Patrick began crossing these two palms I have never seen a naturally crossed JUbaea x Syagrus, or anything close to what we now know to be the cross. As Patrick says, this is very difficult to cross manually, so it will be much tougher to have a natural hybrid. My guess is if the seeds did come from a Jubaea as you believe, it will end up to be something different. But then again, there are firsts for everything.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I missed that with Rob.

Did you collect the seeds yourself?

I will tell you where there may be a problem with the Jubaea x Syagrus theory. Before Patrick began crossing these two palms I have never seen a naturally crossed JUbaea x Syagrus, or anything close to what we now know to be the cross. As Patrick says, this is very difficult to cross manually, so it will be much tougher to have a natural hybrid. My guess is if the seeds did come from a Jubaea as you believe, it will end up to be something different. But then again, there are firsts for everything.

Gary, I am not attached to the jubaea x syagrus theory, I've already purchased one of Patric's JxS and that's the one I will be planting. But I am nevertheless puzzled about this particular hybrid. Perhaps it's as you say and I have no choice but to wait and see how this plant develops. I was hoping it would be possible to identify specific features on this plant to determine what it is.

[MattyB]

Looks like J x S to me.

[Alicehunter2000]

What other possibilities would exist other than Jubaea, Syagrus, or Butia?

[Alberto]

Last May I collected some Jubaea seeds from Mission Bay. Now I´m hoping for some odd seedlings....

[Nigel]

I am open to suggestions on what the pollen parent might be but doubting the jubaea female parent is not useful. This hybrid came from jubaea seeds, the rest came true to seed. It's a jubaea female, but unknown pollen donor. That much is known. As of right now it looks like queen. No other parent would produce ligules like that. But perhaps it's something else. Jubaea does spontaneously hybridize, there are lots of examples of it.

Given the high degree of variation in morphology between the various hybrids, you have to rely on specific keys like ligules and other distinct features to ID a hybrid. Any general statements as to their appearance isn't going to be very accurate. I doubt jubaea x syagrus from other parent specimens would look identical to those from patric. Even mules from different hybridizers look totally different.

You said parent female tree is unknown in your first post. I assume then that you cannot verify if other seed was mixed into the batch and possibly Jubaea female was not uniform in the seed. So doubting the Jubaea female is in fact useful and a possibility.

Errrm no such thing as a jubaea female. The Jubaea like all in the tribe carry both male and female flowers. Why are you guys talking about Jubaea females ?

[Gtlevine]

Nigel, We are referring to the tree that was used as the female, male flowers removed. Please read the posts and you wont get confused.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Sorry for the confusion, as Gary pointed out, when I say "female", I speak of the tree that took the "female" role, i.e. the seeds that got pollinated. It's really not a function of a tree being dioecious or monoecious.

Just as an update, tracking down the records for the specimens in question, the seed were collected from a large jubaea in Beverly Hills, not Mission Bay or Monterey Bay. I did not collect the seeds, but I suspect they were collected near the Beverly Hills Hotel. The fellow who collected the seeds said there were lots of queens around, but also some butia. It's not possible to rule out JxB. I am going to plant at least one of them to see what it turns into. It's a bit of a gamble, but they are so insanely fast, it won't take long to see what they turn into.

[sarasota alex]

Last May I collected some Jubaea seeds from Mission Bay. Now I´m hoping for some odd seedlings....

Alberto, based on how all of my Mission Bay seedlings are suffering through our Florida summer they are all Jubaea all right. I am planning to be there in a few weeks. Will collect some more.

[Nigel]

Nigel, We are referring to the tree that was used as the female, male flowers removed. Please read the posts and you wont get confused.

Oh I am not confused. What you were writing was quite simply wrong. There is no such thing as a female Jubaea.

A seed is always formed from a female flower. All Jubaeas have them. Male flowers do not form seeds.

[Gtlevine]

Nigel, We are referring to the tree that was used as the female, male flowers removed. Please read the posts and you wont get confused.

Oh I am not confused. What you were writing was quite simply wrong. There is no such thing as a female Jubaea.

A seed is always formed from a female flower. All Jubaeas have them. Male flowers do not form seeds.

We were not wrong, we were providing a reference point easily understood. You obviously did not understand this. There was no need to get into the weeds as you have, this is not nuclear physics. Any time we discuss the female plant in a cross, it should be obvious which flowers are which. So next time you should be able to follow along.

[Nigel]

Why didnt you just write, sorry yeah thats we meant instead of trying to make me look the stupid one. Much simpler.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Nigel

[Gtlevine]

Why didnt you just write, sorry yeah thats we meant instead of trying to make me look the stupid one. Much simpler.

I apologize, i didn't see my response that way. I will check my words more carefully next time.

[JasonD]

Looks like J x S to me.

me too

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Thanks for the JxS vote of confidence, that gets me more motivated to plant it. I've got a dozen of these, not sure what to do with them all.

[awkonradi]

Would you like to test the growth of one smack in the middle of this lawn in SE Burlingame? I still would need to get approval from my wife. The ugly trees next to the curb are coming out. Note: I was thinking of xeriscaping the whole front lawn, and putting in two BxS as centerpieces. Definitely could revise the plan to put in one putative JxS.

Edited August 19, 2014 by awkonradi

[Gtlevine]

Thanks for the JxS vote of confidence, that gets me more motivated to plant it. I've got a dozen of these, not sure what to do with them all.

Axel, if you had just one of these it would be more believable, but a dozen? Patrick has spent years up drenching Jubaea flowers with syagrus pollen and has produced hardly any of these . So what are the odds in naturally cross of 12 plants?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Gary, I am so unsure of what this is that I am not going to insist these are JxS. However, I am going to challenge your reasoning around why one would be more believable. If there is a pathway for any spontaneous hybridization, then you're going to get a 1-2% hybridization rate, not a single specimen out of hundreds of seedlings. A single hybrid is statistically almost impossible.

I have one 15g, one 5g, and there are about a dozen 1 gallons that are displaying the same trait out of hundreds of seedlings. Some germinated earlier, and some later. They stand out first because they're 3x the speed of the others. The hybrid nature of these is quite believable and follows the patterns for spontaneous hybrids I've seen at Jeff Marcus' nursery.

If these are actually JxS, it just means that under specific circumstances, you can get hybrids. The fact that Jubaea spontaneously hybridizes with butia tells me jubaea readily accepts pollen from other species. Then why wouldn't it accept syagrus pollen? I would re-frame the question, what was it about Patric's pollination conditions that made it difficult to get jubaea to accept the syagrus pollen? I know that syagrus pollen is much more temperature sensitive than jubaea, and it's much easier to do syagrus crosses in Florida and Southern California under high night time temperatures than it is to do it in Norcal where we get a drastic temperature drop off at night. Syagrus don't even self pollinate in a large portion of Northern California, this is not the part of the State where you would want to undertake syagrus hybrids because the window for viable syagrus pollen is much smaller.

Anyway, all of this is just conjecture, assuming what I have is indeed JxS. You've said it yourself, only time will tell.

[Alberto]

Some specimens in the same species hybridize easier then others. I have a Butia eriospatha that I gave up to try to hybridize. "She" doesn´t accept any other pollen then from other butia......

[Gtlevine]

Im not say they are not Axel. But after being into this hobby for 15 years and seeing nursery men and collectors germinating tens of thousands of jubaea seed, ive never seen a jubaea x syagrus until Patrick did it. If you got 12 from a single batch of seed, there should be thousands of these planted and growing around California. Ive still never seen a big one anywhere, and mine has still not trunked either. So i have no scientific explanation except its not in the odds for you to get all these hybrids in one lot.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Im not say they are not Axel. But after being into this hobby for 15 years and seeing nursery men and collectors germinating tens of thousands of jubaea seed, ive never seen a jubaea x syagrus until Patrick did it. If you got 12 from a single batch of seed, there should be thousands of these planted and growing around California. Ive still never seen a big one anywhere, and mine has still not trunked either. So i have no scientific explanation except its not in the odds for you to get all these hybrids in one lot.

Gary, I've been at it for almost 20 years and you're right, I've never seen a JxS, yours was the first one I've ever seen. I agree that it's a bit unusual to have one single specimen jubaea in Beverly Hills be producing JxS.

I am going to watch the 1 gallons, if they turn into the same thing in 15 gallon pots, I'll be glad to give you one to try, and you tell me what it is.

[Gtlevine]

You should plant one Axel and hang onto the rest. In two or three years you will know. I appreciate the offer but im not planting any more palms in my garden, the ones i have drink enough water.

[LJG]

Gary, I am so unsure of what this is that I am not going to insist these are JxS. However, I am going to challenge your reasoning around why one would be more believable. If there is a pathway for any spontaneous hybridization, then you're going to get a 1-2% hybridization rate, not a single specimen out of hundreds of seedlings. A single hybrid is statistically almost impossible.

I have one 15g, one 5g, and there are about a dozen 1 gallons that are displaying the same trait out of hundreds of seedlings. Some germinated earlier, and some later. They stand out first because they're 3x the speed of the others. The hybrid nature of these is quite believable and follows the patterns for spontaneous hybrids I've seen at Jeff Marcus' nursery.

If these are actually JxS, it just means that under specific circumstances, you can get hybrids. The fact that Jubaea spontaneously hybridizes with butia tells me jubaea readily accepts pollen from other species. Then why wouldn't it accept syagrus pollen? I would re-frame the question, what was it about Patric's pollination conditions that made it difficult to get jubaea to accept the syagrus pollen? I know that syagrus pollen is much more temperature sensitive than jubaea, and it's much easier to do syagrus crosses in Florida and Southern California under high night time temperatures than it is to do it in Norcal where we get a drastic temperature drop off at night. Syagrus don't even self pollinate in a large portion of Northern California, this is not the part of the State where you would want to undertake syagrus hybrids because the window for viable syagrus pollen is much smaller.

Anyway, all of this is just conjecture, assuming what I have is indeed JxS. You've said it yourself, only time will tell.

Better yet, you simply can never count out Mother Nature.

[Mandrew968]

Thanks for the JxS vote of confidence, that gets me more motivated to plant it. I've got a dozen of these, not sure what to do with them all.

Axel, if you had just one of these it would be more believable, but a dozen? Patrick has spent years up drenching Jubaea flowers with syagrus pollen and has produced hardly any of these . So what are the odds in naturally cross of 12 plants?

I believe it--Patric didnt try ALL Jubaea, so he can only speak for his experiences--different trees, different situation, all options open!

[Mandrew968]

You should plant one Axel and hang onto the rest. In two or three years you will know. I appreciate the offer but im not planting any more palms in my garden, the ones i have drink enough water.

Such a sad statement--no more palms...

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

We've had such a humid Summer with lots of overcast and night time drizzle that our water usage is relatively mild this Summer. I can understand Gary, though, Escondido is pretty dang hot and can make palms very thirsty.

[Gtlevine]

We've had such a humid Summer with lots of overcast and night time drizzle that our water usage is relatively mild this Summer. I can understand Gary, though, Escondido is pretty dang hot and can make palms very thirsty.

I cut out 30% of my palms this year, i'm just keeping my favorite ones and getting rid of the rest. My tastes have changed as well, I like other plants more than palms now so I'm not willing to spend a lot of water on palms i'm not thrilled with.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

We've had such a humid Summer with lots of overcast and night time drizzle that our water usage is relatively mild this Summer. I can understand Gary, though, Escondido is pretty dang hot and can make palms very thirsty.

I cut out 30% of my palms this year, i'm just keeping my favorite ones and getting rid of the rest. My tastes have changed as well, I like other plants more than palms now so I'm not willing to spend a lot of water on palms i'm not thrilled with.

Very interesting, you are doing with palms what I am doing with my fruit trees. I am replacing over 70% of my orchard with palms. The water hungry palm garden is complete, there are just a few holes left to fill in. The lower more sun exposed and thus drier and hotter part of the garden is getting filled with mostly drought tolerant palms like brahea. I am also putting in a 20,000 gallon pond to save rain water in the Winter.

[Mandrew968]

We've had such a humid Summer with lots of overcast and night time drizzle that our water usage is relatively mild this Summer. I can understand Gary, though, Escondido is pretty dang hot and can make palms very thirsty.

I cut out 30% of my palms this year, i'm just keeping my favorite ones and getting rid of the rest. My tastes have changed as well, I like other plants more than palms now so I'm not willing to spend a lot of water on palms i'm not thrilled with.

Very interesting, you are doing with palms what I am doing with my fruit trees. I am replacing over 70% of my orchard with palms. The water hungry palm garden is complete, there are just a few holes left to fill in. The lower more sun exposed and thus drier and hotter part of the garden is getting filled with mostly drought tolerant palms like brahea. I am also putting in a 20,000 gallon pond to save rain water in the Winter.

SWEEEEEEET!!!!! sounds awesome.