Lytocaryum weddellianum (miniature coconut palm) flowers

[David_Sweden]

My indoors Lytocaryum weddellianum has produced flower stalks regularly for over 3 years. But I always thought it looked like it gave up before there were any actual flowers. The last few months the stalks have been a bit bigger but still nothing that looks like flowers on it.  And a couple of weeks ago I thought I felt the scent of flowers (there are no other "potential flowers" in this room, but my sense of smell has been suffering from Covid or repeated colds). Today I saw some "small balls" on the flower stalk. I'm wondering if this could actually be fruit? Meaning the extremely inconspicuous even smaller things beside the "balls" are very tiny flowers? What do flowers look like, and fruit? A pic from today:

A pic from July 2022 that shows how it's been producing these flower stalks many times already:

The whole palm (last month):

Two pics I found online of flowering Lytocaryum weddellianum:

I potted it up in August 2022, it was suffering a bit from too tiny pot I'd say, the new fronds were smaller than the old ones the months before that, and turned brown & dry to a large extent. But nowadays it's producing big green fronds again. 

And at Christmas I exchanged the fertilizer I'd been using for years (a 2-component type from Dutch "Gold Label" which was no longer available and the replacement was quite dissimilar) for a 1-component "Coco Grow" which I use at half dose, for this and my Foxtail palm (both in coir). Since then they have needed less frequent watering (soil staid moist for more days) and the Coconut palm got noteable brown tips on many fronds. But I think it has stabilized now. Didn't expect change of fert to have such a big impact (not even sure that's the reason).

I read Lytocaryum weddellianum can flower indoors if you're lucky, and that it has edible fruit. Well it's supper time. Can I eat'em? 😁

[Scott W]

@Pal Meir is the resident expert with growing Lytocaryum indoors.   Look at some of his posts for some help.

As for the flowers, the little balls are the female flowers and the other ones are the males.  The males typically open up first while the females become receptive days, sometimes even a week or more later.  All will be present when the bract opens up.

[David_Sweden]

Thanks. It's not really an "indoors" question. Really tiny flowers then, at least the male ones? I'll keep an eye out for the "bract" then.

[Scott W]

The bract is what emerges when it starts flowering, and is the hard shell around the infloresence.  Once it opens, the infloresence for most palms will contain the male and female flowers (males look like.tiny spiders and females tiny balls).  Once pollinated, the seeds and fruit start to develop and its then called infructescence.

Bract developing on my Dwarf butia

 infloresence stage

infructescence

[David_Sweden]

I heard something bounce on the wooden floor. Fell from the palm tree. I found two of these green-beige-brown "balls" about 5mm in diameter:

Are these fruit or is it just buds that fell off? Does anyone know what size fruit are? They seem quite hard, like nuts/seeds.

And I noticed that on the other side of the tree was growing a flower stalk bigger than ever, I guess that's where they fell from. Hard to get a pic that's in focus:

There's also a smaller flower stalk a couple of decimeters down on the opposite side (the male flowers seem bigger there):

Are you sure this palm type has a bract like in your picture? I haven't seen any bract on my palm or in the flower pictures I found online.

[peachy]

Different species get different sizes in bracts. None of my Lytocaryums has flowered yet but my Chamaedoreas start flowering from a very young age. The bracts are really apparent until the plant gets much bigger with the bract size in proportion to the rest of it.  As for the little things on the floor, they look like seeds to me.  Your palm seems lovely and healthy and must be happy or it wouldn't start to reproduce. so you are doing everything right.

Peachy

[Scott W]

Those are the female flowers that didn't pollinate or dod pollinate but were aborted, thus they fell off.  

[David_Sweden]

Thanks guys

[David_Sweden]

Now I see what you mean by "bract"! The latest flower stem is more big and distinct than ever, I think until recently they turned brown before getting too far, but the last one looks promising, it is still partly inside the "bract":

I'm guessing I have to wait until there are some female "flower balls" (the male seem to tiny to see even when developed) and the use a "stick with cotton at the ends" (called "Q-tip" in the US I think) to pollinate them?

Regarding "you are doing everything right" I have to admit there has been 3 major crises: I bought it online in 2015 and it had mealy bugs. I have my ways to exterminate them though. This is the palm to scale compared to today:

Then in 2021-2022 I let someone live with me and sleep in that corner, essentially blocking access for much more than watering. It's a dwarf species, how urgent can repotting be, I thought. After they moved out I concluded it was in dire need of repotting. Caused a lot of brown leaves and fronds half the normal size. But the last few fronds are of proper size and green.

Then the 3rd crisis, which is still ongoing but hopefully near the end, is that they stopped producing the 2-component fertilizer I had been using for (mostly) coir substrate and their replacement was not the same and their description not trustworthy, I tried 1-conponent "ionic Coco Grow" for a while instead (I wrote about it here), but ended up using what I use for all peat based soils: 1-component "Blomstra" at half dose (it is only available in Sweden). I use one of those cheap soil moisture meters and can see that the rightmost inch stays wet a bit longer than the rest still but it is nearly back to normal I think or at least hope.  Caused a whole lot of brown tips to the extent I nearly felt like giving up but I cut the brown parts off (about 1000000 of them) and they seem to stay away. For the lowest fronds I accepted noteable brown parts since many palms look like that naturally, but in my case it is fake, pretend, they would all have been perfectly green had I not had these issues.

So everything is not as green in Paradise as it might look.. But I hope there are no more crises and that I get to taste a miniature coconut soon 🙂