can someone identify this palm?

[olafpronk]

Can someone tell me what species this palm is?  It grows at my property

where I rarely come and it is clearly not in good shape.  The palm gets a lot of morning sun and sits the rest of the day in the shade of a large Ficus tree.  I suppose the former owner of my property planted it in Tananarive’s red laterite soil.  I intend to clean up the plant, remove dead leaves and old infructences.  The palm seems to lack iron although the soil here is generally rich in iron.  It is a clustering palm, at the highest point the leaf tips are may be 18ft off the soil level.  If necessary, I can take a pic of the entire plant tomorrow, I gave my wide angle lens to a visitor who is out in the field and he will return tomorrow.

Olaf

Antananarivo

dead links removed, pics below

[fastfeat]

Olaf--

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[olafpronk]

Sorry for the dead links, have to get used to posting pics.  Here they are, hopefully

[olafpronk]

[fastfeat]

It looks like Caryota mitis, Clustering Fishtail Palm, to me.

[olafpronk]

(fastfeat @ Feb. 29 2008,08:13)

QUOTE

It looks like Caryota mitis, Clustering Fishtail Palm, to me.

Thanks for that quick id, Googled Caryota mitis and that must be it!  I see it needs plenty of water and an occasional feed.  Will take care of that!

[gsn]

Looks like Caryota mitis, to me also.

However at least one of the stems is flowering. Which means that, that stem is going to die,as this is a moncarpic palm. It blooms once then dies.

But as fastfeat said this is a suckering,clustering palm so any stem that is not flowering will survive, until it also is ready to bloom.

[BS Man about Palms]

Thats an important part to note, Olaf. If you move it, some stuff will die.  It is multi trunked at this point?