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Scott W, There is a huge amount of seed that is never harvested, or collected for germination here around Santa Barbara and Ventura. OK it takes awhile to find the mature trees that consistently deliver but Jubaea seed by the buckets goes to the squirrels . I collected Nikau palm seed in Ventura today and at least the squirrels leave it alone but again buckets of seed never get touched. Parajubaea Cocoides seed is also available although mature trees are fairly rare. I was wondering if Nikau seed are hard to get in Florida? Obviously Jubaea seed is imported and Parajubaea aren’t locally available . Is it the opinion of Florida growers to favor the hybrids or are growers there still trying to germinate cool climate palms at least in Northern Florida. We can get down to the low twenties and I grow these palms because they can handle a mild freeze. I also enjoy germinating difficult palm projects . Hope they outlive me.

Wow amazing growth. I hope mines that large in 7 years. I think it’s about the same size as yours in 2019.

Hey Richard, old habits die hard, this now is Allagoptera caudescens according to Kew. Tim

Agreed, very cool. A genus that loves our climate down here as well, which is not something we get to boast about very often! Need to find some sunkha seeds to complete the collection at some point.

This plant has now been taken down off ebay, which I think is probably for the best.

Zamia pseudoparasitica has grown well over the last few years. Tim

It now completes, height-wise, with the house.

Had a nice dinner under the Roystonea regia: grilled up some cevapcici, which are caseless Serbo-Croatian lamb and beef sausages with some mushrooms in wine and garlic sauce. And a politically incorrect beverage. .

An old photo of my parajubaea in the snow in 2018.

Here’s the recipe for the mushrooms: INGREDIENTS 1-2 pounds crimini mushrooms chopped; 1 large onion skinned and diced; 1-8 cloves of garlic peeled and grated; olive oil; 1-2pounds ripe tomatoes; salt pepper chopped basil and thyme to taste; 1 cup dry white or red wine. PROCEDURE Coat sauce pan with 1/4” of olive oil and sauté grated garlic till golden or brown; add mushrooms, tomatoes, and chopped onion; stir; add wine, salt pepper and thyme and or basil;simmer on low heat uncovered till liquid evaporates. Stuff face, along with cevapcici. Chase with some red wine. So @dalmatiansoap what do you have with cevapcici?

That is exactly the way my Jubaea look. First to open are the male flowers at the ends and then a week or more later the female flowers. I read or was told by someone that Jubaea Female flowers open after all the male have finished on same spathe. Purpose for that is to help prevent pollination on same plant by itself preferring to get pollination from a different Jubaea tree in the vicinity. Also I was told that it is best to have at least two Jubaea palms in order to get fruit. If this is true or not I don't know, but 45 years ago I planted two Jubaea just in case.

I checked the Jubaea Tues. April 7, and the male bloom was in progress, I returned April 9 and the male bloom had dropped . So I collected unopened sprays on April 1 , dried them and sent them to Scott. I collected open male blooms on the seventh and they are still drying but two days later they had all dropped. I can see lots of pollen on the remaining female blooms so maybe there will be a seed set.

Scott, I caught the Jubaea on the right day. Pollen! I need an address. So caught today . Spathe intact still on tree, held grocery bag up and collected without damage . Will dry in bag three days, sift, and place in container with a desiccant packet.

2026 update...and yep, still thriving! The overall width on the last several sets of fronds has widened substantially, with them starting to encroach on my Syagrus campylospatha. Also, comparing the trunk height, the new growth appears to me to be emerging several inches taller; last years shows about at eye height on the statue, this year eyebrow height.

Yes, and @edbrown_III Jubeaopsis has flowered now for several seasons but has yet to produce viable seed. Hoping it made it through this cold snap unscathed. Hoping to get over there for a visit soon.

This is exciting to see ... pure Jubaea has an almost mythological status in Florida, alongside Dypsis decipiens (especially tempting, given its excellent cold hardiness as a crownshaft palm) and a lot of beautiful higher-elevation or higher-latitude South Pacific/South America species, like Hedyscepe. Few palms are as stately and impressive as Jubaea when mature, as I've seen back in coastal California (CIDP's just aren't the same ...) @edbrown_III has successfully grown a trunking specimen of the related and coconut-y Jubeaopsis for a while in Jacksonville, but I have not had luck with germinating it from RPS seeds. I had grown a number of Jubaea from seed, keeping them in a heavily sand/perlite mixture in pots with lots of fungicide. Unfortunately, I sold most of them off before college (a particularly strong one I kept was sorely lost in an accident). I hope to get another batch going soon, as I think panhandle Florida and the broader Southeastern US could work for these with well-drained (preferably, amended with perlite) soil and on a mound. I believe there are healthy ones in parts of South Texas, around San Antonio. Genetic variability will be interesting to see. Dracaena draco (+ cinnabari) is another elusive favorite of mine. Plenty of stately, mature ones in California and the Mediterranean thriving off neglect, but finicky in Florida.

Here is an updated photo of mine it definitely is different than those grown in cooler areas it has already been dropping it’s boots which ones I have seen much larger still have their boots!

I wonder if because of the dry heat in Arizona, Jubaea just can't get enough water. Several pictures of Jubaea in hot areas like Florida, Arizona and even northern Chile all seem to have more narrow trunks than those in cooler areas like coastal California, coastal Chile. Here in temperate Southern Oregon near the ocean, Jubaea really bulk up their trunk year after year. From my log of diameter of the 43 year old Jubaea trunk, it continues to expand every year. Could it be that in hot areas the evapotranspiration is so fast, that the Palm can't suck fast enough to satisfy thirst which limits the size of the trunk? I wonder.

Quick question, when it was potted, what kind of growing medium did you have it in?

Yes, the newest set of fronda has always been slightly larger than the last. I'll take some measurements of the last set for comparison with the new set.

Can you notice if the leaves are getting bigger, especially after periods of rain? The Spear looks really good in your pictures. Palms that have strong upright Spears always seem grow bigger and faster than those that don't.

2025 update...still thriving! Looking at last year's pics the trunk does appear to have swelled in diameter.

Update?

I now have 6 seedlings that I will be planting in a few years, if they can survive my crazy 8A climate, they'll survive anywhere in the southeast.

Latest update....still thriving. 😁

In my climate it’s about 2 or 3 years from germination that they start to go pinnate.

I just got a small Jubaea Seedling. How many years does it take on average to go pinnate/Develop full fronds?

I can only hope to see mine that big one day 🙏🏽 T J

Here are some pictures of mine the first is in full sun and this summer was hell the second is in some shade!!

oh, OK.... I went and took a pic.. just shy of 4' diameter at base, maybe 44".

Let see your tree hugger palm ! T J

Nice to see this successful zone pushing. I'll always add for folks starting/growing these. (mine was 5" in diameter at planting and 5' of trunk now) you mostly just watch these become a massive bush first. They just get wider and wider with a little vertical gain. Once they get their full width, they then go up, fairly quickly.

Not North Texas but I'm off the Gulf. Mine has been in the ground since spring from a 15g and about to see its first winter. T J

@ZPalms, what you don't realize is that Washies are remote germinators. That means they send down a long radicle first but you can't see it from the surface. And that radicle can go down 8 or 10 inches, which is why you need a deep container. Then, partway along the radicle the seedling-to-be starts forming its first leaf, i.e., an eophyll. You can't see that either because it is underground. Finally, that little "spike" grows upward until it breaks the surface of the soil. So, a lot of stuff is going on underground you can't see but you must give the seeds lots of room to do their thing.

For the most part, all of the filibustas survived the -5F freeze with one week under freezing here in Longview.

Shipping this off to a guy on Monday, just thought I'd post a photo of it, seeing as how it was showing a little color, Ed

Geeze Bill, those look familiar. Recognize this double? This photo is from back in March, it's grown some since and is looking great.

Wal this is what I know about cham.mac. watermelon . I saw a cham. mac. with seed on it 12 yrs.a go in a garden here on the big island no other cham. around that I could see. Being the seed pig that I am I collected as many seed as I could . Way to many anyway germinated them all, time moves on pot to 4 in. then to 1 gal. to many to keep putting in to 1 gal. so we put 3 in a 1 gal.. More time so we move them to 12 and 15 gal. NOW they are starting to show the markings . Some are still just starting to show at 12 yrs old. Here are some pic.I am starting to move them all some where not sure where so thats why it looks this way. This is just a few of what I have of these.

Looks like a Chamby forest Wal! Daniel, wow that is SPECKtacular.