Has anyone seen or heard of a palm every dying of cold tempature in its natural range/habitat? That would be crazy! Has it ever happened that anyone knows of? 

Hope that nobody sees such thing, because it would mean that we face a natural catastrophe of major scale such as a nuclear winter or an eruption of a mega-volcano; I mean that whichever such selection took alreaady place in the  previous milleniums with the  successive ice ages. Besides even if such weaklings come up now and then they very probably get discarded before even they obtain some noticable size.

Edited November 7, 20169 yr by Phoenikakias

20 minutes ago, Phoenikakias said:

 Besides even if such weaklings come up now and then they very probably get discarded before even they obtain some noticable size.

^^This^^

blizzard of 1899 might have killed sabal palmetto around jacksonville.  due to it got down to -2 there

2 hours ago, Mr.SamuraiSword said:

blizzard of 1899 might have killed sabal palmetto around jacksonville.  due to it got down to -2 there

Wow -2 that sounds apocalyptic. I wonder what it got down to in my neck of the woods. Where can find that info?

7 minutes ago, Cocoa Beach Jason said:

Wow -2 that sounds apocalyptic. I wonder what it got down to in my neck of the woods. Where can find that info?

strangly it only got to 15 on the panhandle.  cocoa beach would have been in the 40s-20s

I remember in another thread someone posted a picture of a royal palm in South FL pretty well burned after the 2010 FL cold. And that event definitely wasn't as bad as they come. 

2 hours ago, Cocoa Beach Jason said:

Wow -2 that sounds apocalyptic. I wonder what it got down to in my neck of the woods. Where can find that info?

There probably isn't any data from then in your area. Miami got down to 29 if that's some indication. 

3 hours ago, Cocoa Beach Jason said:

Wow -2 that sounds apocalyptic. I wonder what it got down to in my neck of the woods. Where can find that info?

He probably means -2C = 28.4f

Edited November 8, 20169 yr by GottmitAlex

14 minutes ago, GottmitAlex said:

He probably means -2C = 28.4f

Nah, it really was -2f but that was in Tallahassee. Jax should have been a little warmer.

Edited November 8, 20169 yr by RedRabbit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1899

It really isn't such a remote possibility that a palm or any plant would die of cold in its native range, else how do you think the native range gets established?  The fringes die off in natural extreme cold events, during warm periods the range creeps out again and eventually gets beat back by an 1899 event or some other event. 

The afrorementioned damaged royal palms in Florida is a good example, they were damaged but not killed in native habitat, it isn't too hard to imagine that a more severe outbreak is possible that could kill some, or that the native population might have stretched farther north in a warmer period and has been reduced to its current location. 

38 minutes ago, Xerarch said:

The afrorementioned damaged royal palms in Florida is a good example, they were damaged but not killed in native habitat, it isn't too hard to imagine that a more severe outbreak is possible that could kill some, or that the native population might have stretched farther north in a warmer period and has been reduced to its current location. 

I've heard it speculated that the 1894 freeze was the main factor behind why R. regia was extirpated from the St. John's river valley. 

16 hours ago, Mr.SamuraiSword said:

blizzard of 1899 might have killed sabal palmetto around jacksonville.  due to it got down to -2 there

Actually, that -2 was in Tallahassee, not Jacksonville.  

11 hours ago, Opal92 said:

I remember in another thread someone posted a picture of a royal palm in South FL pretty well burned after the 2010 FL cold. And that event definitely wasn't as bad as they come. 

Archibald Research Station has zone 8 winters rather frequently.  Sometimes its zone 8a.  Just a few miles north of there, Coconuts grow and fruit in Sebring, & Lake Placid.  So in FL, latitude matters, but microclimates are equally important.  There are Royals that survived 09-10 and 10-11 in Jacksonville's most favorable microclimates when Archibald fell below 15.  Archibald is at least 200 miles south of Jacksonville.  

28 minutes ago, Keith in SoJax said:

 There are Royals that survived 09-10 and 10-11 in Jacksonville's most favorable microclimates

How many do you suppose are up there? Even with Mayport's climate numbers it seems like they'd be pretty marginal.

4 hours ago, Zeeth said:

I've heard it speculated that the 1894 freeze was the main factor behind why R. regia was extirpated from the St. John's river valley. 

I almost brought that up, the fact that royals were reported growing native that far north in Florida by early explorers. 1894 was another severe freeze in Florida but perhaps the worst one was in 1835. Not a lot of data for that freeze but it killed 100 year old citrus in St. Augustine, Jacksonville got down to 8 degrees. Prior to that freeze they were growing citrus in southeastern South Carolina.  1835 was just the type of freeze that kills native vegetation.  I could imagine some Sabals getting beat up in the extremes of their range.  

Interesting question, but thinking about it, I'm sure it's possible, though a weird scenario.

Natural range means people didn't put it there, I'll assume.

So, it's possible that birds might drop seeds just barely out of where they "normally" grow.

I could picture a really crazy outlier snowstorm, say, in northern Florida once every 100,000 years that wipes out everything. Or maybe a perfect storm on the Big Island, and the skiing gets great at 5,000 feet . . . .

But weird scene.

5 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

How many do you suppose are up there? Even with Mayport's climate numbers it seems like they'd be pretty marginal.

The house with the royals is right on the St John's river where its very wide.  Its truly a "micro" climate.  Not sure exactly how many they have, but its probably less than 10.

 

12 hours ago, Keith in SoJax said:

 There are Royals that survived 09-10 and 10-11 in Jacksonville's most favorable microclimates

Very interesting, thanks!