Just got back from Central Cuba. 4 days starting in Camaguey and leaving from Santa Clara. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Camaguey, Serpentine Savannah with Coccothrinax macroglossa & psuedorigida, and Copernicia hospita & cowelli all growing alongside each other.

Edited January 19, 20179 yr by GMann

Coccothrinax litoralis in Cayo Guillermo:

 

Copernicia gigas, on the south coast of Sancti spiritus:

 

Copernicia Fallaensis near Fallas.

Copernicia curtissi in Santa Clara:

 

19 minutes ago, GMann said:

Copernicia Fallaensis near Fallas.

Incredible 

Coccothrinax cupularis. Growing on rocky ground along the coast in the border area between Cienfuegos and Sancti Spiritus provinces. Duanny Suraez discovered this population quite recently. They were before only known in Matanzas province.

Great photos! Thanks!

2 hours ago, GMann said:

Copernicia gigas, on the south coast of Sancti spiritus:

 

Wow!

Loving this thread!  Beautiful habitat shots of some of my favorite palms.

Thanks for the fantastic photos and id's Gareth.......saweet!

Tim

Gareth's photos are excellent.  I'm working through a pile from the same trip; won't have anything significantly better to add.  It was a wonderful visit, kind of like college "ecosystematics" trips long ago to see the plants and vegetation of the Carolinas and West Virginia.  

Here's two little Coccothrinax clumps on the serpentine barren, the right one with what looks like Cassytha filiformis, a dodder-like plant in the Lauraceae.  

A little Copernicia (looks like C. macroglossa) and a dense area on the barren.  

View from the hill across the serpentine savannah (Cuba really is the American New Caledonia) and more thick area on the hill.  

Copernicia gigas, Sancti spíritus.  The first photo isn't so great--error in camera settings.  That's a mangrove on the right and a salt flat in front.  Second photo shows leaves cut for roof thatch.  

The Copernicia fallaensis stand had evidently been harvested for thatch leaves.  I suspect some leaves had been cut from tall crowns, somehow.  

I should have picked a photo with humans or horses, or both.  

 

 

Great photos guys!!! Love the ones over the savannahs with all those amazing palms. 

Regards Neil

10 hours ago, Dave-Vero said:

A little Copernicia (looks like C. macroglossa) and a dense area on the barren.  

 

I believe that is the Copernicia Cowelli Dave.

In that habitat near Camaguey there were also some naturally occurring hybrids between Cowelli and Hospita, which are called "Copernicia x Schaferi".

I now wish I was paying more attention to Duanny instead of running up to the top of the hill to take photos. I originally thought this palm was a Copernicia Hospita, but maybe it is the schaferi hybrid that Duanny was talking about??

Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

Edited January 20, 20179 yr by GMann

Thanks, Gareth, for the correction.

Outstanding post! Thanks.

Spent 10 days in Cuba  during Feb. of last year.  Cien Fuegos Botanical Gardens were one of the highlights of the trip.  One of the major reasons for traveling to Cuba was to see  Roystonea Regis in habitat.  I wasn't disappointed!

Hope other American tourists will discover that there is so much more to see beyond Havana.

6 hours ago, GMann said:

In that habitat near Camaguey there were also some naturally occurring hybrids between Cowelli and Hospita, which are called "Copernicia x Schaferi".

I now wish I was paying more attention to Duanny instead of running up to the top of the hill to take photos. I originally thought this palm was a Copernicia Hospita, but maybe it is the schaferi hybrid that Duanny was talking about??

Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

I think that one's just C. hospita. Here's what the hybrid looks like:

Cuba is Madagascar west!

great pictures

Cuba is New Caledonia east.  Serpentine barrens account for 7% of the island's land area but a third of its endemic plants (book by Kruckeberg, quoting another book by A. Borhidi (1991) that's out of print but should be findable at major university libraries, along with  Kruckeberg's "Geology and Plant Life: The Effects of Landforms and Rock Types on Plants" (he was at the University of Washington).

I somehow managed not to take a single photo of royals.  I'm sure Gareth did.  They're widespread, very often around houses and farms, along streams but also on upland sites.  Never on serpentine areas or saline sites.  Beautiful.  So many tall ones that I wondered whether Cuba, in general, has the high rate of lightning strikes that characterizes parts of Florida.  Their abundance gave me a sense of relief about fears of overplanting them in Florida.  

Anyway, here's another look at the Camagüey serpentine savannah with Gareth and Duanny.  

Camagüey hillside again.  Cloud made for poor light, but you can see the Copernicia and Coccothrinax crowns.  

On Thu Jan 19 2017 22:00:44 GMT-0800, Dave-Vero said:

I should have picked a photo with humans or horses, or both.  

 

 

They are breathtaking. I really need one (or a dozen) in my life.

I worry about conservation needs for these palms.  The Copernicia fallaensis stand seemed to have little reproduction, unlike C. gigas.  

Copernicia gigas has a caretaker, and of course the thatch means the palms have considerable worth.  Rural Cuba (and of course the resorts) still has a lot of thatched buildings.  

very nice pictures!!!!!!!!! thanks a lot for sharing

On 1/19/2017, 11:07:42, GMann said:

Copernicia gigas, on the south coast of Sancti spiritus:

 

This thread is killer, I can't get over all these Copernicias. Look at those horses by comparison! Granted they're a little bit in the background, but still. 

These habitat images are fabulous!

Great

On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2017‎ ‎5‎:‎16‎:‎58‎, Zeeth said:

I think that one's just C. hospita. Here's what the hybrid looks like:

I just got feedback from Duanny and that palm I posted is indeed a Copernicia Schaferi, not Hospita.

And this one is also (the one in the center):

Edited January 23, 20179 yr by GMann

On further discussion with Duanny, it turns out that basically all the hospita looking palms that I took photos of in that area are actually schaferis.

Interesting. Maybe the appearance is variable. The fact that they're all mostly green is intriguing. 

The one in the background of this photo (center) is also schaferi according to Duanny and it is blue:

 

 

I made a couple videos from this trip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weLRyXeses4

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5XlBc21eyw

Really amazing photos and palms!! Thanks for sharing