Sabal causiarum

[RJ]

So these guys move pretty quickly when provided both heat and water. First pic is right after planting. May of 2024, second pic was taken today, so two growing season in the ground. 
 

 

 

[Fusca]

Don't forget sun.  A couple of mine show similar growth but a couple of others in more shaded spots are not.  Nice palm!

[RJ]

5 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Don't forget sun.  A couple of mine show similar growth but a couple of others in more shaded spots are not.  Nice palm!

Very true! This one gets 3/4 of the day in the sun, I have another one about 20' away that's doesn't get quite as much sun and is a bit slower. Very excited to see how they do next year as they should be fully established by then. I have another that has been in the ground for a year or two more and gets no water and only a half day of sun and it's half this size.  

[Fusca]

Yeah, I think they really start to move once they get their adult leaves like yours.  Only my Sabal Riverside is faster than causiarum but not by a whole lot.

[RJ]

2 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Yeah, I think they really start to move once they get their adult leaves like yours.  Only my Sabal Riverside is faster than causiarum but not by a whole lot.

My riverside is quite fast as well.  Doesn't get as much sun but still quicker then most sabals for sure. 

[JohnAndSancho]

This is good to know, I really want to get my staggered Sabal/banana garden going. It's hard to do when you're looking at bananas growing at like 200x the speed of the Sabals lol. I look forward to 12-20 foot bananas and 4" palms in the yard. 

[Chester B]

18 hours ago, Fusca said:

Yeah, I think they really start to move once they get their adult leaves like yours.  Only my Sabal Riverside is faster than causiarum but not by a whole lot.

I sure hope you're right, my causiarums aren't breaking any records.  Riverside and Mexicana are much, much faster 

Causiarum has the biggest juvenile leaves I've seen on a Sabal.  I have second one that is being shaded by other plants that actually grows faster.  This one only gets shade when the sun sets.

[RJ]

3 hours ago, Chester B said:

I sure hope you're right, my causiarums aren't breaking any records.  Riverside and Mexicana are much, much faster 

Causiarum has the biggest juvenile leaves I've seen on a Sabal.  I have second one that is being shaded by other plants that actually grows faster.  This one only gets shade when the sun sets.

Interesting, none of mine have had  strap leaves that large. The one pictured above is about 3’ tall. Yours looks to be over 4’. The one at my folks is over 6’ tall but it’s been putting out palmate leaves for at least two years now, maybe 3. 
 

I had what I thought was Causiarum and it had very big strap leaves, it never got that big because I tossed it when it burned at only 20* or so. 
 

@Sabal King might be able to chime in on what his looks like. He got his seeds from Joe Lavert  in Augusta, GA. 

[Chester B]

49 minutes ago, RJ said:

Interesting, none of mine have had  strap leaves that large. The one pictured above is about 3’ tall. Yours looks to be over 4’. The one at my folks is over 6’ tall but it’s been putting out palmate leaves for at least two years now, maybe 3. 
 

I had what I thought was Causiarum and it had very big strap leaves, it never got that big because I tossed it when it burned at only 20* or so. 
 

@Sabal King might be able to chime in on what his looks like. He got his seeds from Joe Lavert  in Augusta, GA. 

I have domingensis as well, and they look very similar to causiarum but burn in the mid 20s.  My two causiarum are different from the domingensis I have from two different sources.  I got these causiarum from another Texas palm grower in a colder zone, so they should be hardy.  Domingensis leaves are smaller, I grew both species side by side from a similar size.  Domingensis have put out more leaves but smaller, these causiarum put a lot into one leaf.  You can see from the photo that the next one maybe fully palmate.

I don't think these are quite 4', more like 3.5' but I never like to quote lengths until I actually measure them.

I have grown some of of the palmetto x causiarum from seed so it will be interesting to compare once they start to put on some size.

[Fusca]

7 hours ago, Chester B said:

I sure hope you're right, my causiarums aren't breaking any records.  Riverside and Mexicana are much, much faster 

Causiarum has the biggest juvenile leaves I've seen on a Sabal.  I have second one that is being shaded by other plants that actually grows faster.  This one only gets shade when the sun sets.

Yeah I hope I'm right too!  Not my personal experience (yet) but what I've read about others.  Yours is about the size of my largest.

[MarcusH]

On 10/17/2025 at 9:02 AM, Chester B said:

I sure hope you're right, my causiarums aren't breaking any records.  Riverside and Mexicana are much, much faster 

Causiarum has the biggest juvenile leaves I've seen on a Sabal.  I have second one that is being shaded by other plants that actually grows faster.  This one only gets shade when the sun sets.

That's not the one I gave you right? 

[Chester B]

1 hour ago, MarcusH said:

That's not the one I gave you right? 

No. I consider that one a domingensis, it looks just like my other one. 

[MarcusH]

19 minutes ago, Chester B said:

No. I consider that one a domingensis, it looks just like my other one. 

I think we talked about that it wasn't a Causiarum but I wasn't 100 percent sure .

[RJ]

18 hours ago, Chester B said:

No. I consider that one a domingensis, it looks just like my other one. 

I’d be interested to see side by sides if you still have both in pots. These two palms I think draw the most confusion when folks are trying to obtain one or the other. For those in zone 8 they want to source causiarum for obvious reasons. 

[Fusca]

3 hours ago, RJ said:

I’d be interested to see side by sides if you still have both in pots. These two palms I think draw the most confusion when folks are trying to obtain one or the other. For those in zone 8 they want to source causiarum for obvious reasons. 

If this helps, I have both species planted in the ground about 10' from each other.  To be honest I don't recall which is which but I suspect that the larger one in the shaded first photo is the causiarum and the other is domingensis.  Both were germinated from seed at the same time and both were planted at the same time as strap-leaf seedlings and both get more or less the same amount of sun and water.  Neither has shown any damage at 27°F.