Smallest Palm Seed???

[Dypsisdean]

Well, most of us here know what the world's largest palm seed is. I believe it's the largest plant seed as well. And no, it's not a coconut.

But is there a consensus on what is the smallest palm seed? I'm guessing it may be a Chamaedorea or one of the tiny Dypsis, but I have never before heard it discussed.

[Jeff Searle]

The two smallest palm seed that I have ever seen I think, are Dypsis mananjarensis,aka, the mealybug palm, and the second would be, Hemithrinax ekmaii.

Jeff

007

[FossilNypa]

Can it be from a Geonoma?

[Tyrone]

Basellinia gracilis is the size of a small pepper corn.

regards

Tyrone

[ghar41]

Guihaia argyrata are pretty darn small.

[Carlo Morici]

In 2004 I published the following:

..."El extremo inferior de tamaño en semilla y eófilo pertenece a Coccothrinax gracilis, endémico de La Española, que es la especie de palmera no trepadora más esbelta (ver más arriba: radiación de Coccothrinax). Semillas secas viables procedentes de la localidad de Samaná miden aproximadamente 1 mm y tienen un peso medio de 17,25 mg. Los eófilos producidos por esas semillas al germinar promedian 1,8 mm de ancho por 62 mm de largo . Eófilos de tamaño parecido pertenecen a otras especies relacionadas, de Cuba y de La Española, todas endémicas locales de rocallas cársticas y de semillas pequeñas."

In brief, viable seeds of Coccothrinax gracilis gave an average weight of 17,25mg. This is about 1 million times less than Lodoicea maldivica.

This is possibly the smallest or lightest seed. Other West Indian Thrinacinae can compete, but I lack data.

Carlo

[cfkingfish]

Having gone through seeds like Ted Kennedy goes through bottles of Johnnie Walker, I'd have to say all of the mentioned seeds are extremely small. I was thinking about this myself - this is what I came up with as extremely small and very close in size to one another:

Hemithrinax ekmaniana

Hemithrinax rivularis

Coccothrinax gracilis

Coccothrinax torrida

Dypsis mananjarensis

Dypsis malcomberi

Also, Roscheria melanochates is pretty darn small. All these seeds stick to my fingers when I try to plant them.

[calyptrocalyx&licuala freck]

Hi All,

Seen very many speices with small seeds, All listed here already but fof me this take the Cake. There is a  "var"

of Licuala which looks so much L.lauterbachii the seed

of these are the size of a pin head

It first sight I thought they would be useless, needed

a lupe (l0x) to check them & they where prefect seeds.

It Stunned me for seed size.

                      Regards Mikey  :cool:

[JakeK]

I really don't have anything to compare them to, but the Deckenia nobilis seeds I ordered are about 1/4 the size of peppercorn.

[MattyB]

Definately not the smallest but Washingonia filifera is pretty small.  About like a "bb" if I remember correctly.

[Joe palma]

Calyptronoma rivalis are the smallest I have seen.

Very small. Of course, I didn't get one to sprout, so they might not have been viable and thus smaller than normal. Seemed ok though.

[Gileno Machado]

The smallest I've tried here were Thrinax ekmaniana and Dypsis schatzii. Incredible small is the size of the seeds in Pritchardia thurstonii too, comparing to the other species in the genus...

[Al in Kona]

The two smallest size palm seeds that I've ever encountered have been Coccothrinax torrida and Hemithrinax ekmaniana - both of these have already been mentioned in an above post.  Interesting too is that they are both from Cuba.

[JD in the OC]

I would agree that Guihaia argyrata is one of the smallest.  I have Dypsis mananjarensis and they are slightly larger, and then D. malcomberi are the same size as those but more round.  G. argyrata seeds are about the size of a large ant's head.

I think we all need to do some exact measurements to be sure though...

[Dypsisdean]

Well the one thing I am finding interersting is that most of the candidates for smallest seed are palmate palms. Even more interesting when you consider that the largest is also palmate.