Crazy queen palm

[Kevin S]

 Today I thought I'd share pictures of a very interesting queen palm in the neighborhood.  It is the only one I ever seen do this maybe I should try to collect some seed if it ever goes to seed.

 I think this queen palm thinks it's some sort of date palm pupping up in the Palm leaf area.  Has anyone else seen a queen palm do this?

[Brucer]

It could be because seeds have dropped into the remains of the frond bases, and germinated.

I have seen this with Butia capitata, and actually pulled seedlings out and put them in pots and they grow.

[Kevin S]

 I know it's not seedlings because how fast it's happened and how big the leaves on what emerged.

[Jim in Los Altos]

There have been several pictures posted showing multiple headed queen palms. Damage at the growing point at some point in time can cause this unusual growth behavior to occur. Lightning has been implicated in a number of growth anomalies in queens and other palm species.

[RedRabbit]

On 4/16/2016, 2:13:33, Jim in Los Altos said:

There have been several pictures posted showing multiple headed queen palms. Damage at the growing point at some point in time can cause this unusual growth behavior to occur. Lightning has been implicated in a number of growth anomalies in queens and other palm species.

Yep, that might be what is going on in this case... There's a well known 2 headed queen at Kopsick and I was driving down the road the other day and saw this 3 headed queen:

[Brad Mondel]

I saw one like that in Cali, didn't get to snap a picture but it looked like a more mature version of this one. 

[Kevin S]

 I think what cause the palm up above to do that.  It was over pruned but  also it probably is something in the genetics of that one.