Caryota sp. "Elvis", still a mystery

[Eric in Orlando]

Back in the late 90's I remember seed and plants of Caryota sp. "Elvis" in the trade in Florida. If I remember right seed was collected by someone named Elvis of a mystery Caryota in southern Thailand (?). I had gotten 2 plants and added them to the collection at Leu Gardens (1996, 2000). Both grew more slowly than C. mitis and were more cold sensitive. They also had thinner trunks and clumped sparsely with just 1-2 main trunks and 6-8 offshoots and the leaves have narrow leaflets. The first one reached about 6-7ft tall and flowered but never set fruit and the whole clump died when it was done. The 2nd palm did set some fertile seed but lost the palm in the 2017 hurricane from a falling tree. I have 4 planted out from these seeds. Here is one growing well. The main trunk is about 7ft tall and has just several small offshoots at the base.

 

Any new info on this mystery palm? Currently 3 clustering Caryota are known; mitis, monostachya and sympetala.

[Harry’s Palms]

Definitely a unique Caryota , that one . Unlike C. Mitis in that the whole palm dies when flowers are done . The other interesting feature is the sparse clump , mine ( Mitis )get very dense clumps that just keep regenerating after cutting the flowering trunks. Some of the stems in my Mitis reach heights of about 8’ before flowering but they are surrounded by other stems , forming a great privacy hedge. I have never heard of other species of clumping Caryota. Harry

[tim_brissy_13]

There has been a recent review of Caryota, Arenga and Wallichia (now lumped into Arenga) published so hopefully Elvis has been studied. Looks like you need to pay to view though (phytotaxa). 

[Eric in Orlando]

On 10/31/2025 at 3:17 PM, tim_brissy_13 said:

There has been a recent review of Caryota, Arenga and Wallichia (now lumped into Arenga) published so hopefully Elvis has been studied. Looks like you need to pay to view though (phytotaxa). 

I just downloaded the revision and still nothing matches up. Besides the 3 previous clumping Caryota (mitis, monostachya and sympetala) there is now Caryota hastata (formerly  Arenga). But "Elvis" is not this species so maybe it is a hybrid of something with C. mitis or a still undescribed Caryota.

[Eric in Orlando]

Also a few other interesting changes if this gets accepted besides Wallichia placed into Arenga;

 

Arenga microcarpa lumped into A. australasica

Arenga hookeriana lumped into A. caudata

Arenga ryukyuensis, which had recently but split into a new species from A. engleri is now A. engleri ssp. ryukyuensis

Caryota basconensis, maxima and ochlandra lumped into C. urens

[tim_brissy_13]

4 hours ago, Eric in Orlando said:

Also a few other interesting changes if this gets accepted besides Wallichia placed into Arenga;

 

Arenga microcarpa lumped into A. australasica

Arenga hookeriana lumped into A. caudata

Arenga ryukyuensis, which had recently but split into a new species from A. engleri is now A. engleri ssp. ryukyuensis

Caryota basconensis, maxima and ochlandra lumped into C. urens

Thanks Eric. I was really curious which Arenga got put into Caryota. I guess now C hastata is now the only non bi pinnate Caryota. 
 

Palms of New Guinea lumped A australasica into A microcarpa rather than the other way around. I guess it’s all based on which is the older taxon. 
 

I remember Henderson referred to the potential limping of those former species into C urens in a Palms in Vietnam webinar so I saw that coming. I’m growing bacsonensis, maxima, ochlandra and himalaya so I guess they are now all variants of C urens. 

[Eric in Orlando]

38 minutes ago, tim_brissy_13 said:

Thanks Eric. I was really curious which Arenga got put into Caryota. I guess now C hastata is now the only non bi pinnate Caryota. 
 

Palms of New Guinea lumped A australasica into A microcarpa rather than the other way around. I guess it’s all based on which is the older taxon. 
 

I remember Henderson referred to the potential limping of those former species into C urens in a Palms in Vietnam webinar so I saw that coming. I’m growing bacsonensis, maxima, ochlandra and himalaya so I guess they are now all variants of C urens. 

I remember hearing rumors years ago of Arenga and Wallichia being lumped into Caryota but it never happened.

 

I'm waiting for the new names to appear on Kew's database before I change any labels out in the collection at Leu Gardens.

[gyuseppe]

I germinated 4 caryota, but I don't know if they are ochlandra or urens, now my question is this: which of the 2 is more resistant to the cold? Or is it the same since now it is a single species?

[tim_brissy_13]

1 hour ago, gyuseppe said:

I germinated 4 caryota, but I don't know if they are ochlandra or urens, now my question is this: which of the 2 is more resistant to the cold? Or is it the same since now it is a single species?

Just because there’s a name change to lump them doesn’t mean they’ll now have the same tolerance. 
 

Within C urens, there will now be forms from different origins that have very different hardiness. C urens ‘himalaya’ and ‘ochlandra’ are known to have good hardiness well below freezing. My ‘bacsonensis’ seedlings also do fine outside unprotected down to about -1C despite their more tropical origin, but I’d guess they wouldn’t approach the hardiness of the Himalayan and Chinese forms. 

[Eric in Orlando]

Years ago when the "Himalayana" types were still an unknown and not ID'ed as C. maxima, we had a couple C. maxima grown from Philippine seed. They were much more cold sensitive than C. ochlandra, C. urens and C. "Himalayana"