Say that three times as quick as you can!

Caixeta’s thread about Astrocaryum campestre inspired this thread on the only Astrocaryum I have in the garden. Mike Merritt gifted me an A. murumuru about six or seven years ago and being the spiniest palm I have ever seen, was planted in the back open space behind the property. Often neglected, I decided to clean it up a bit and post a few photos. 

South American and variable in its habit. Leaf undersides, (abaxial), are almost pure white and the it has spines everywhere, most prominent on the stems where they are 8” (200mm) long. No joke, a slip or fall into this palm will render one a specimen in an insect collection.

Maybe Mike will post some of his A. murumuru or other species of this interesting genus. 

Tim

 

For some reason Astrocaryums seem to have bigger spines than other members of the bactridinae subtribe (Acrocomia, Aiphanes, Bactris, Desmoncus)

Astrocaryum murmuru, astrocaryum murmuru, astrocaryum murmummumum, nice palm, but for the life of me I can’t say it three times in a row fast let alone spell it three times fast! 
Lucky Hawaii growers🌱

Richard 

That’s one serious defense system on a palm. Looks beautiful though, the white undersides really stand out

Cats would def not mess with this one. 

always a fun challenge to prune the large Astrocaryum species

one time while harvesting A. vulgare fruit, the whole infructescence bounced off the trunk and whipped its spiny peduncle into my thigh… ill never forget the feeling of pulling thorn after thorn out over a couple hours 😵‍💫

1 hour ago, JohnAndSancho said:

Cats would def not mess with this one. 

Mine likes to bite on thick Acrocomia spines. But Bactris sp. would work for you because their spines are very thin.

2 hours ago, knell said:

always a fun challenge to prune the large Astrocaryum species

one time while harvesting A. vulgare fruit, the whole infructescence bounced off the trunk and whipped its spiny peduncle into my thigh… ill never forget the feeling of pulling thorn after thorn out over a couple hours 😵‍💫

OMG Knell, I can’t imagine how horrifying something like that can be. Nightmare material. I mean look at that mutha! I did trip and grab onto a young Verschaffeltia once……never again. You get hip quickly.

Tim

As suggested by Tim, I did a photo update of my three murumurus. This was hampered slightly by the presence of parts of one of my neighbor's Albizia trees that blew down in a windstorm. The trees are still healthy but suffered some leaf damage from falling branches that I haven't cleaned up yet. (One of my four Socrateas was snapped off 6 ft off the ground.) the first pic shows the main stem of one and branches of a much smaller offshoot to the left. (This is a clustering species.)

 

Here is a shot of the base with two offshoots in front of the base of the main stem.

 

Here are the other two plants:

 

Spines? Well here are some of them, much smaller on the offshoots than on the main stem:

 

Try not to have nightmares of masses of spines!!

 

 

Danger Will Robinson!  Danger.   Yes that robot citation dates me.  This makes some of my Cycads look less intimidating. 

1 hour ago, realarch said:

OMG Knell, I can’t imagine how horrifying something like that can be. Nightmare material. I mean look at that mutha! I did trip and grab onto a young Verschaffeltia once……never again. You get hip quickly.

Tim

i can relate to the spiny stem grab as well… good lessons all around, lots of pain but plenty gain!

I also got one of these from Mike many years ago. This is definitely a palm with murder on its mind. Mine is located on the main garden path I take visitors on, so I need to keep it surrounded by yellow caution tape to prevent lawsuits. After visiting Mike's monster multi-trunk mother tree in person, I definitely keep all the suckers cut back on mine. One stem is more than enough.

I'm guessing the giant spines must be an adaptation to prevent some large herbivore from eating it. But what animal drove selection for spines of THAT size?  Godzilla? Maybe something huge that's now extinct?

10 hours ago, knell said:

Siempre es un desafío divertido podar las grandes especies de Astrocaryum.

Una vez, mientras cosechaba la fruta de A. vulgare, toda la infrutescencia rebotó en el tronco y golpeó su pedúnculo espinoso en mi muslo... nunca olvidaré la sensación de sacar espina tras espina durante un par de horas 😵‍💫

That palm tree is the sharpest I've ever seen. I hope no good man gets smashed against it.

Was out back this morning and snapped a photo, all the while keeping my distance.

Tim

39 minutes ago, realarch said:

Was out back this morning and snapped a photo, all the while keeping my distance.

Tim

One of my favorite astrocaryums, heard it has some cold hardiness.