One of my friends took some seeds from Los Angeles.  Of course, no photos of the trees  or their description. At the first picture the seeds collected from 3 different trees. Is it possible to identify by the seeds their species? Or at least narrow down the possible options. At the second photo you can see a sprout of the smallest seeds (at left). It seems to be blueish. At the right a seedling of Brahea edulis is shown for comparison.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Hi Vadim,

Iam no expert on sabal.But the last big seeds seen in you first photo looks close to Sabal Riverside palm seeds.And the first one could be the regular S.Palmetto palm seeds.

Love,

Kris.

I need to find a metric ruler...

Sabal seeds.

Smallest = 5-6mm

Medium = 8-10mm

Large = 10-12mm

As to what species, I'm not sure as I don't live in LA and you don't have photos of mothers. S. palmetto seeds are fairly small but their seedlings are green and not so blue.

hard to identify a wide range of sabal possibilities from seeds alone.   You can rule some out perhaps. The bluish seedling looks a lot like the S. uresana I purchased 6 years ago: blue tinge and thin strap leaves are similar.  Identifying sabals is often not easy from seeds or a seedling.  I would suggest a read of scott zonas carribean sabal monograph.   https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d654/e6da9964f6d2756521f13353aefcf0c5c58c.pdf

 

On ‎12‎/‎24‎/‎2017‎ ‎6‎:‎57‎:‎11‎, sonoranfans said:

hard to identify a wide range of sabal possibilities from seeds alone.   You can rule some out perhaps. The bluish seedling looks a lot like the S. uresana I purchased 6 years ago: blue tinge and thin strap leaves are similar.  Identifying sabals is often not easy from seeds or a seedling.  I would suggest a read of scott zonas carribean sabal monograph.   https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d654/e6da9964f6d2756521f13353aefcf0c5c58c.pdf

 

Yeah, my two Sabal uresana seedlings look like the one on the left as well.

I've grown a good number of different Sabal species from seed, and they've all had some degree of blue - with the exception of Sabal mauritiformis, which has distinctly lime green leaves, at that stage.  That being said, all of my seedlings happen to be in a decent amount of shade.  In California, S. palmetto and S. minor are probably the most prevalent smaller-seeded Sabal varieties.

The only ones I have been able pick out visually are mauritiiformis and burmudana. The large ones at the bottom look like bermudana.

18 hours ago, The Germinator said:

The only ones I have been able pick out visually are mauritiiformis and burmudana. The large ones at the bottom look like bermudana.

Bermuda and riverside seeds are virtually identical in size. I just had a shipment of bermuda seeds come in a few months ago and thats the first thing i noticed. 

Many thanks for all answers!

Tom, the monograph is just what I looked for!

 

Summarizing  the answers I can consider so far that the smallest seeds are S. minor or S. palmetto. The biggest seeds are S. bermudana or S. riverside.

Could the medium seeds be S. mauritiiformis? It seems that their size is appropriate for that. BTW, they started to germinate after 5 days only.

Hope that the biggest seeds will sprout too and will look after them. Although they will never grow up to their natural size indoor ( I live in 5-th hardiness zone at the best).

Mairitformis and maritima are the fastest germinating sabal seeds I have ever grown by a significant margin so based on your 5 days comment that is absolute a possibility. They germinate just as easily as Washintonia seed.  Sabal Mexicana seeds are the third largest of the genus and come up blue as well. Uresana seeds are slightly larger than Mexicana seed and germinate faster than Mexicana.

Seed comparisons pic. Sorry no palmetto or uresana seed on hand to compare

On 12/30/2017, 12:04:23, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

Seed comparisons pic. Sorry no palmetto or uresana seed on hand to compare

Those Sabal mexicana seeds are huge!

We all know Sabal palmetto seeds are tiny anyway.