After 18+ years of empirical observation on my property watching Sabal palmetto grow from natural seedlings germinating on their own, plus ones I've germinated -- not one has ever flowered before developing 4-5 feet of trunk. Conversely, Sabal etonia flowers when small (relative to the range of sizes I find on my property). When I see small, untrunked sabals flowering I know they are Sabal etonia. When I see small ones that don't flower, I can safely assume they are Sabal palmetto; further, their petioles almost always are more vertical than S. etonia. Many Sabal etonia petioles have petioles that lie almost on the ground (the oldest ones), while younger petioles lie 15 degrees above the ground. But even that varies. I have other Sabal etonia with much more vertical petioles that almost look like a Sabal palmetto of the same size. The difference is, is that these Sabal etonia flower (and with only two orders of inflorescence branching).

12 hours ago, Frank - Knoxville said:

I'm very interested, since I have a sibling palm to Meg's.  Mine came from Christian's seeds also, and is about the same age.  Mine seeded for the first time this year, and I was going to sell them...but when I went to harvest them, they appear smaller than S. miamiensis should be, so I suppose I'll just sow them all.  Maybe since it's the first year it has seeded, that's the reason for smaller than normal seeds. 

Here's my seeds for comparison.  I included some freshly harvested S. etonia on the bottom row for comparison (They have not been dried out yet, but that shouldn't make much of a difference).

 

 

 

 

Frank, could you post photos of your Sabal miamiensis so I can compare it to mine? And is it possible yours produces smaller seeds because you live in TN? Just a thought because your seeds look like healthy Sabal seeds. Also, are there other flowering Sabal species nearby? I had that question posed to me. I cut off all flower spikes from nearby Sabals on my Sabal row before they flowered. I did miss my dwarfish, struggling S. etonia because it was so small and I didn't notice until it set about a dozen anemic seeds but it was on the other side of the garden and shielded by numerous large Coccothrinax so I don't think it presented any hybrid risk.

4 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Frank, could you post photos of your Sabal miamiensis so I can compare it to mine? And is it possible yours produces smaller seeds because you live in TN? Just a thought because your seeds look like healthy Sabal seeds. Also, are there other flowering Sabal species nearby? I had that question posed to me. I cut off all flower spikes from nearby Sabals on my Sabal row before they flowered. I did miss my dwarfish, struggling S. etonia because it was so small and I didn't notice until it set about a dozen anemic seeds but it was on the other side of the garden and shielded by numerous large Coccothrinax so I don't think it presented any hybrid risk.

Mine is planted in Gainesville, FL...sorry if I wasn't clear about that!  No way I would plant it here, LOL.  Not unless I had about 20 of them.  There's one other mature Sabal, a Sabal minor 'Louisiana', that is about 100 yards away.

 

Here it was last January, 2015, June 2015 (flowering), and September 2015 (I covered all of the infructescences with netting):

 

 

I like how some leaves on this palm are so costapalmate that they fold over back on themselves and look like hands clasping.   I took this picture earlier in the day.

 

 

18 hours ago, Frank - Knoxville said:

I like how some leaves on this palm are so costapalmate that they fold over back on themselves and look like hands clasping.   I took this picture earlier in the day.

 

 

That look is also called "praying hands."

Was out at Deering estate park, with the family yesterday and saw several Sabal palmetto, without trunk, flowering.

This palm at a church near my house, has long been flowering. No trunk...

A closer look...

This palm has been flowering for years. Has pretty big seed on it too.