Question about Palm seeds

[byuind]

We have a large cluster of various Phoenix species by our community pool and a couple of them have thrown some serious dates this summer. We have large amounts of them that have fallen to the ground, which is obviously enticing to my daughters because they want to plant them.

I know there are different seeds for different palms and in this case I let them take a lot of them home and peel off the fruit to get to the inner seeds. I had them throw them in a bowl of water overnight as I had read online.

 

now for the questions:

 

1.) I read that if the seeds don’t float they probably aren’t viable. Is this true?

 

2.) are the dates that come off the various Phoenix species routinely viable or no?

 

 

thanks!

 

[Fusca]

1 hour ago, byuind said:

Now for the questions:

1.) I read that if the seeds don’t float they probably aren’t viable. Is this true?

2.) are the dates that come off the various Phoenix species routinely viable or no?

thanks!

1)  On the contrary - if the cleaned seeds float they are probably not viable.  Vast majority of viable palm seeds will sink in water after cleaning off the fruit.  However uncleaned seeds with the fruit still attached often float in water and the seeds might still be viable.

2)  Phoenix are dioecious palms so there has to be a male palm nearby to pollinate the seed-producing female in order to get viable seeds.  They are quite promiscuous so a female Phoenix palm can be pollinated by a male Phoenix of a different species quite easily.  If there are no other Phoenix palms within miles of your palm you're unlikely to get viable seeds.

[byuind]

1 hour ago, Fusca said:

1)  On the contrary - if the cleaned seeds float they are probably not viable.  Vast majority of viable palm seeds will sink in water after cleaning off the fruit.  However uncleaned seeds with the fruit still attached often float in water and the seeds might still be viable.

2)  Phoenix are dioecious palms so there has to be a male palm nearby to pollinate the seed-producing female in order to get viable seeds.  They are quite promiscuous so a female Phoenix palm can be pollinated by a male Phoenix of a different species quite easily.  If there are no other Phoenix palms within miles of your palm you're unlikely to get viable seeds.

Well that’s pretty cool because there are about 7-8 mature trees around the pool of similar, if not identical species. 
 

I guess we will plant and see what happens

[Fusca]

On 7/30/2023 at 1:57 PM, byuind said:

I guess we will plant and see what happens

No harm in trying.  Since you didn't provide a photo and you stated earlier that you have a cluster of palms it's possible that you have a Phoenix reclinata that has been trimmed back to 7 or 8 stems.  Phoenix reclinata are clustering palms so if that's the case they would be a single palm and only female producing bright orange dates.  But if the trunks are several feet apart then they are multiple plants.  Below is a photo of a single reclinata palm in Tampa showing the multiple stems.

 

[byuind]

On 7/31/2023 at 2:06 PM, Fusca said:

No harm in trying.  Since you didn't provide a photo and you stated earlier that you have a cluster of palms it's possible that you have a Phoenix reclinata that has been trimmed back to 7 or 8 stems.  Phoenix reclinata are clustering palms so if that's the case they would be a single palm and only female producing bright orange dates.  But if the trunks are several feet apart then they are multiple plants.  Below is a photo of a single reclinata palm in Tampa showing the multiple stems.

 

Definitely more of a Sylvester type Palm in this case.

Out of town for work otherwise I would grab a photo today