Palm Flowering Seasons

[PalmGuyWC]

The only major palm I have that blooms in the fall is Trithrinax campestris, usually in mid October, but this year on Oct. 1st. All of my other palms bloom in the spring or summer. One exception is Chamaedorea radicalis which seems to bloom year round. I have several T. acanthocomas and they bloom in the spring too.

I'm wondering, for those of you who live in the southern hemisphere, what time of the year do your T. campestris bloom? Mine seems to be out of phase with the other palms.

For those of you who are not familiar with T. campestris, it's a beautiful palm with sharp spines on the trunk, and the tips of the fronds are sharp  needles. They are very well armed and should be planted away from paths and foot traffic.

They are very cold hardy (-15C) and will take extream dry heat and are drought tollerant. Their foliage color ranges from green, to blue/gray, to silver. Some can be almost as silver as Bismarkia. When they bloom the flowers almost explode with growth. One day you will see the flower sheeths emerging, and two days later there is a large cluster of thousands of small yellow flowers. They almost look like a puff of yellow smoke. They are quite beautiful and give off a very sweet scent that can be detected some distance from the plant. At this flowering stage mine are covered with honey bees.

Trithrinax grow best in Mediterranian climates, and just languishes in the heat and humidity of tropical climates. It's an ideal palm for inland areas of California. T. campestris not only varies in color but in form. Of the two that I have, one is compact with thick trunks and it has short petioles and the fronds are stiff and point upwards. It's very robust and has 7 trunks and trys to grow new suckers, but I remove them.  The other only has two trunks but is much more stretched out and relaxed and has long petioles.

PACSOA has some nice pictures of the different Trithrinax. Anyone out there growing some?

Dick

[Nigel]

Dick, a few have started to flower here, also late in the season, but thats probably more to do with our rotten climate than anything.

[PalmGuyWC]

Nigel,

I was wondering since T. campestris is a Southern hemisphere palm, if the blooming time was "fixed" or if it bloomed down there in spring or the fall. Seems like a bad time for a palm to bloom here as it's the begining of our rainy season, and the small fruit has to develop over winter. It takes about 14 months for the fruit to ripen here. Sometimes it turns yellow, and sometimes the fruit falls off mostly green, but the seeds have developed and the fruit is easy to remove as it's detached from the seed.

Dick

[Carlo Morici]

Trithrinax campestris will bloom a bit later here, in late fall , through winter, if I am not wrong.

We are having some beautiful bloomings on Trithrinax schizophylla at the Palmetum, most plants are flowering for the first time. It is quite attractive, reminiscent of T.campestris.

Trithrinax brasiliensis is also represented by a few mature specimens. Has anybody tried hybrids?

Carlo, Tenerife

[PalmGuyWC]

Carlo,

It's odd you mention hybrids. Patrick collected some flower brachts of T. Campestris the other day. To try to cross pollinate them would be very difficult and a hit and miss affair, as there are thousands of small flowers and they are hermaphroditic with both sexes contained in the same flower. I suppose it would be possible with a lot of difficulties. We shook the flowers and there was very little if any pollen we could see.

Only a few would probably be cross pollintaed, then the seeds can be difficult to germinate. It would take years untill the seedlings grew up to see if they were hybrids. I can't see any particular advantage in hybridizing them, since they all seem to be cold hardy. As you probably know there is a lot of veariation in T. campestris. I've only seen about a dozen plants and no two looked exactly alike, different color, different form.

Dick

[ghar41]

(PalmGuyWC @ Oct. 11 2007,13:36)

QUOTE

PACSOA has some nice pictures of the different Trithrinax. Anyone out there growing some?

Dick

Yes, I really like this genus and have a few different types.  I have a couple of T campestris that are root bound in 5 gallon pots that I am going to plant in the spring.

The best place to plant them is out in my front yard....they love sun and are cold hardy.

Problem is....my kids are still small and like to play out there and as you know falling into one of these dudes can be deadly.  In fact all my open sun areas are exposed to my children.

My second choice is an area close to my house (North facing) that gets decent summer sun but is in the shade all winter.

Anybody grow these in summer sun only?