Legally Obtaining Live Lodoicea maldivica Seed in the US

[Turtile]

Hi,

Does anyone know if there are any institutions that produce seed in cultivation in the US or another country that can provide seed to another institution?

If not, I've heard that it might be possible to legally obtain seed from the Seychelles Government. If this is true, does anyone know who or how to contact the right people in the government to obtain a seed?

Thank you for any help!

[Keybmp]

I’d love to find out as well, along with its cold tolerance

[Cindy Adair]

I tried hard (around 2017?) to get two live seeds to Puerto Rico where they would likely grow fine. 
 

I had all the proper permits to bring them into the States via Miami and a letter from the USDA station welcoming the donation of one seed with the other going on my farm. 
 

Through a friend who had legally imported seeds before I had a contact within a conservation group there willing to send the seeds BUT the sticker needed by the Seychelles government to export live seeds was no longer allowed due to political change. 
 

Seeds have the contents removed and sold for eating (aphrodisiac claims) and the dead hulls are sold for souvenirs. 
 

Sad for sure. Very tender to cold I understand but not a problem in PR. 
 

Yes there are a few places producing seed now out of the Seychelles like Nong Nooch and Sri Lanka and others like Darwin and Singapore sharing pollen hoping for success, but nothing to allow for seed sharing that I am aware of. 

[John hovancsek]

I think the botanical garden in Oahu has successfully got seed but they probably will only share with other botanical gardens 

[jacobvan97]

On 11/18/2024 at 3:56 AM, Cindy Adair said:

I tried hard (around 2017?) to get two live seeds to Puerto Rico where they would likely grow fine. 
 

I had all the proper permits to bring them into the States via Miami and a letter from the USDA station welcoming the donation of one seed with the other going on my farm. 
 

Through a friend who had legally imported seeds before I had a contact within a conservation group there willing to send the seeds BUT the sticker needed by the Seychelles government to export live seeds was no longer allowed due to political change. 
 

Seeds have the contents removed and sold for eating (aphrodisiac claims) and the dead hulls are sold for souvenirs. 
 

Sad for sure. Very tender to cold I understand but not a problem in PR. 
 

Yes there are a few places producing seed now out of the Seychelles like Nong Nooch and Sri Lanka and others like Darwin and Singapore sharing pollen hoping for success, but nothing to allow for seed sharing that I am aware of. 

Any further luck with this?

[Cindy Adair]

No luck on my end.

[Davidlon]

This is not an easy palm to obtain. Maybe one day we’ll all get a chance to try one.. 

[PalmatierMeg]

I believe the country of origin for this species banned exportation of all seeds of this palm some years back. Since then they’ve been almost impossible to find, esp for hobby growers. You sometimes see empty/hollow seed shells for sale - they are also expensive for essentially dud “seeds”.

[tropicbreeze]

On 11/18/2024 at 7:26 PM, Cindy Adair said:

........

Yes there are a few places producing seed now out of the Seychelles like Nong Nooch and Sri Lanka and others like Darwin and Singapore sharing pollen hoping for success, but nothing to allow for seed sharing that I am aware of. 

In the public area of the Darwin Botanical Gardens it seems they only have female plants, which are always loaded with fruit with plenty laying on the ground. However (there's always a "but", but however will do here) they're small and sterile. I've heard they've got males "out the back" somewhere so maybe there's a breeding program there. I could imagine if they had plants with fertile fruits in the public area they probably wouldn't last long. It's completely open and unfenced. I know someone who works at the gardens, must get in contact with her and find out whether they have mature fruits that sometimes "fall off the back of a truck". 🫢

 

[Rick Kelley]

Foster Garden in downtown Honolulu has a mature female producing fertile seeds using pollen obtained from a botanical garden in SE Asia. When I last visited about two years ago, the tree was loaded with many huge seeds, and a half dozen seedlings were growing around the mother tree. Hopefully at least one will turn out to be a male. That might provide a tiny breeding population. Unfortunately, the palms on Oahu are rapidly being destroyed as coconut rhinoceros beetles sweep across the island after arriving about 13 years ago. I don’t know the status of palm collections in the several large botanical gardens on Oahu, but I would think it is CODE RED. 

Because of that threat, I would hope Foster is working to distribute seeds to botanical gardens with appropriate climates and maybe responsible private collections. I know of only one older specimen on the Big Island, but there certainly might be others. Some very well-known palm gardens here that would do a great job with this species don’t have them. That makes me think that if Foster is sharing seeds, it is only with a very few professional botanical gardens and research institutions. They probably hate getting inquiries from palm hobbyists requesting seeds. More than likely nonprofit tax law prohibits them from selling seeds.