Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a truly unusual biological anomaly I just ran into with my Jubaea chilensis seedlings.

While going through my latest batch, I discovered a single seed that produced twin sprouts (polyembryony). Given that Jubaea is strictly a single-embryo palm species, finding a double-header like this is exceptionally rare. Both sprouts successfully pushed out their own separate, distinct root and shoot systems from the exact same nut.

Instead of risking the taproots trying to separate them, I left them completely intact and potted them up together into one of my 12-inch deep tree bands to grow as a multi-trunk specimen. (The rest of the successful batch all got potted into their own individual 12-inch tree bands as well).

Has anyone else ever encountered true polyembryony in Jubaea chilensis before? Would love to know just how uncommon this really is in cultivation!

I have seen two from the same seed before,kerriodoxa elegans, but nothing like that at either end of the seed. Keep that on marked as special!

I crack Jubaea seed before sprouting. Sometimes there are two or occasionally three separate viable seeds in one shell. In picture below you can see some half sphere seeds sprouting. If you didn’t crack them you wouldn’t know you really have twins. See upper left.

Wow, that’s very interesting. Thanks for sharing you guys. I wonder what the occurrence rate is.

I’ve had this occur relatively commonly in a few of Juvaea’s relatives (Parajubaea sp, Butia sp, Syagrus sp). I’ve never germinated Jubaea in any great quantity but I’d expect it’s not all that uncommon in Jubaea too based on its closest relatives.

Here’s some interesting ones from a recent batch of Syagrus campestris. A twin with 2 seed petioles (middle of the photo of the container), but then also a split twin from one seed petiole which I can’t say I’ve seen before.

I collect from several different Jubaea palms around Santa Barbara . Most adult Jubaea have rare or no twins but one tree I collect from has ~ 25% of its seed crop with twins. It is a relatively young Jubaea maybe half its adult size. I will check future seed sets and see if every year it throws twins. Seed size is also small on the young Jubaea compared to the Mission palms or the one at the lawn bowling park.