Dypsis "Big Curly" confusion

[Gtlevine]

I was at Dean Ouer's today drooling over the best Madagascar collection in Southern Californa and we proceeded to confuse each other regarding the variability of palms in the complex which contains Dypsis "Big Curly", "OCWS", Canuliculata, and a number of others that look so similar. The more I see of these different palms, the more  they start looking like one of the same palm, but possible variations of the group that probably occured along geographical locations. If you have one of these palms, please post a picture and lets see what variations we all have. Here is a picture of my palm sold under the name "Big Curly", to start things off.

Gary

http://thumb12.webshots.net/t....MG]

[DoomsDave]

Gary!

I might be the Big Ho Customer everyone craves, I know, but hey . ..

Love the pic, gonna look some more.

By the way, can you do one-armed chin/pull-ups?  I think I know the answer

dave

[BS Man about Palms]

OK, I'll bite, heres a poor pic of mine...

(Glad you posted, I seem to remember hearing or commenting that it would be nice to make an album or something to compare)

Bill

[Dypsisdean]

Gary,

We can add to that family/complex D. prestoniana, posted recently under a MattyB thread, D. 'jurassic park,' previously posted by Bo, and D. 'kanabe,' recently mentioned under MattyB's thread by Ron Lawyer. I think D. robusta might fall into this category also.

BTW---Thanks for the compliment. I always enjoy showing Madagascar freaks around.

[BS Man about Palms]

(Dypsisdean @ Oct. 07 2006,20:34)

QUOTE

Gary,

We can add to that family/complex D. prestoniana, posted recently under a MattyB thread, D. 'jurassic park,' previously posted by Bo, and D. 'kanabe,' recently mentioned under MattyB's thread by Ron Lawyer.

BTW---Thanks for the compliment. I always enjoy showing Madagascar freaks around.

I too, shall like to bow before the awesomeness of what is Dean Ouers Encinitas garden!!!!!!   :cool:

Thanks again, Dean

[aussiearoids]

Was talking to Jan of TNQ Palms the other night about her Dypsis collection , mentioned her D. basilonga , and she agreed it is incorrectly named . She had just had a visit from Bill Beattie and he is working on finding out a name for it . btw is he on this forum ? Will get some better pictures of it but here it is again ..

[aussiearoids]

Nearly a triangle crown shaft .

[aussiearoids]

Leaf detail.

[Gtlevine]

Bill, your "Big Curly" is a little confusing to me as well. A beautiful palm indeed, but the leaf arrangement does not match mine. Mine looks similar to OCWS, but I have an OCWS, and like yours and Dean's, the leaflets are vey thick and heavy. My Big Curly has thinner and lighter leaflets.

Dean, Dypsis Prestonia is an enigma to me as well. I have one I obtained from Ron Lawyer as Dypsis Prestoniana, but I am sure it is actually Dypsis Robusta. I am now pretty sure I have not seen an actual Dypsis Prestoniana other than P.O.M From the photos, it looks very similar to Dypsis Tokoravina.

Gary

[BS Man about Palms]

We could maybe get an answer if we could modify "Chers" song and apply it!

--"If we could speed up time.........."-----

Ok- sorry , didn't sleep well last night.

[MattyB]

Aussieariods:  That pic looks to me like D. madagascarensis or D. mahajanga type palm.  It's much smaller in stature than the large solitary D. robusta, Big Larry, D. pressyertoeniana, ahhhh you get the picture.  It's suckering too, it looks like!

[pogobob]

Here's Ron Stricklands BIG Curly in San Clemente.

[pogobob]

Closeup of leafbases. Note the colorful tomentum.

[pogobob]

This palm is gonna be a monster, no trunk yet, but the crown is 4ft. tall and the leaves are 9ft.

[pogobob]

Here's a palm in Ron's parkway that came as "Dypsis white triangle". Looks to me like Madagascarensis. I Really enjoyed the tour at your socal garden with Bill and Gary, thanks Dean!

[Dypsisdean]

Bob, those are some awesome shots of an awesome palm. Consider yourself a pro poster, after that sketchy start.  

It was great having you and the other addicts over.

[tim_brissy_13]

The leaf bases of Ron's Big Curly look exactly like the Mt Cootha Stumpys I posted in the other Dypsis thread.  I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of these palms turned out to be the same.  I have seedlings of D. prestoniana and 'canaliculata' and they also show the same leaf structure to many of this Dypsis group.

[deezpalms]

Ok, so what about dypsis caniculata? I got several of these in 1 gal.'s from JD Anderson. Does anyone know exactly what is? Better yet, how about tokoravina?

[Matt in SD]

I recently got the Palms of Madagascar, finally, and since reading all the descriptions of the "Big ones", I've been thinking that 'big curly' may be the real D canaliculata.  Like Gary, I usually can barely distinguish 'big curly' from 'ocws' when I've seen them at Ron's place.  I think based on the photo of Bo's plant in the SoCal Palm Journal, Dransfield thought it most resembled Dypsis hovomantsina...I thought this was a bit strange though as it doens't look like the photos I've seen of D hovomantsina.

D tokoravina is a tough one.  What Ron (neoflora) is selling is definitely different than the D tokoravina that was available the last year or two from Floribunda and JDA.  The Floribunda and JDA 'tokoravina's" have regular leaflets (closest to D carlsmithii, but not that either), which doesn't fit the POM description of grouped leaflets.  But they look like they are going to be a nice palm either way.  

And D prestoniana...I think D robusta was sold as D prestoniana for a while.  Jeff's robusta was thought to be prestoniana until it flowered.  Rarepalmseeds used to have the photo of Jeff Marcus' D robusta labeled as D prestoniana.  Now they have a photo for D prestoniana that I would bet money is actually Dypsis hovomantsina.  It seems like there is at least some consistency in what is being called D prestoniana now, though, as I've seen the same plant at JDA, Jungle Music, and from Floribunda, from seedling through 5g sizes.  

Isn't it funny how these Dypsis posts never really end with any sort of conclusion other than that we have no idea what any of these plants are.   All I know is that I need to have more of them.

Matt

[BS Man about Palms]

(Matt in SD @ Oct. 09 2006,10:42)

QUOTE

Isn't it funny how these Dypsis posts never really end with any sort of conclusion other than that we have no idea what any of these plants are.   All I know is that I need to have more of them.

Matt

Yep, thats funny, same conclusion I've come to.  I just realised I have from various people, an OCWS, Big Curly, Tokoravina (both Types), Caniliculata, and Prestoniana.  Plus a couple other "Mystery ones" to boot that look to be of the same type.

I need to make it a point to photograph them at all stages of growth...assuming they do....and make notes.

Thats it!  I'll post the growth pictures here at least every 5 years!!

If I don't see ya before, sorry folks, you don't get off that easy.

[BS Man about Palms]

OK- I just noticed we all spelled Caniliculata different.  Which is right?

[Matt in SD]

Actually...Dean and I spelled "canaliculata" the same, correct, way.  Trust me, I won my schools spelling bee in 5th grade!

Matt

[MattyB]

(Matt in SD @ Oct. 09 2006,10:42)

QUOTE

D tokoravina is a tough one.  What Ron (neoflora) is selling is definitely different than the D tokoravina that was available the last year or two from Floribunda and JDA.  The Floribunda and JDA 'tokoravina's" have regular leaflets (closest to D carlsmithii, but not that either), which doesn't fit the POM description of grouped leaflets.  But they look like they are going to be a nice palm either way.  

For the record here's the D. tokoravina Matt's speaking about.  I've got one from Jungle Music and one from Floribunda and they are the same.  At first I couldn't tell the difference from these and a D. carlsmithii but there are some slight differences.  The D. tokoravina seem to have a brighter color red whereas the D. carlsmithii has more of a orangybrownish color.  Also, the D. carlsmithii is a little more white on the petioles.  Other than that I get them confused all the time without looking at the labels.

Here's a shot of the D. tokoravina crownshaft just before the heal is revealed.  That's why it's so beefy at the bottom.

[MattyB]

And the D. tokoravina leaves, definately not plumose.

[Gtlevine]

I've never seen that photo of Big Curly in San Clements, it's awesome. Again, it sure looks like Dypsis OCWS, so I'm convinced it's the same complex with variations along geographical regions, or just typical genetic variations as all living things have. Whatever it is, I want them all.

Gary

[BS Man about Palms]

(Matt in SD @ Oct. 09 2006,11:55)

QUOTE

Actually...Dean and I spelled "canaliculata" the same, correct, way.  Trust me, I won my schools spelling bee in 5th grade!

Matt

Alright Matt,   I just went back and looked, Dean never refered to Canaliculata, but I see  Gary, Dave, you and I all spelled it different!  

I've won a spelling bee or two in my time also, but I never went to that there college place either, so sometimes I can be kinda stoopid.

I was mostly checking to see if anyone knew the region or person it was named after.

Ok- I just got up off my lazy butt to look in the POM.  I defer to your superior 5th grade spelling Matt!!!

Its spelled "Canaliculata"

OK- back to the topic...oh yes, I can watch my little robusta too!

[Jeff Searle]

Soooo messed up!!  We here in Florida are at a loss too. Oh well, maybe another trip back to the BIG ISLAND, and I don't mean Hawaii.

[BS Man about Palms]

ooooooo, I wanna go!  :cool:

[Jeff Searle]

Are you up to date on all of your shots? We could have a mini biennial there. Limit to say 6-8 people.

[BS Man about Palms]

I'm in...if I can and its a little bit of time from now.  I know Gary Levine is going next year.

Plus, I won't let any of you guys close enough to me that I need shots...and the Ranch hands are very clean!   LOL

[bgl]

And, more Dypsis stuff!! This was sold as Dypsis sp. mony mony by Floribunda way back 8-9 years ago. I'm convinced it's the same as the Big Curly in Posts 12 and 13 in this thread. First a full view.

[bgl]

And a close-up showing the base. An old frond had just come off, and hopefully this is just the beginning of what will turn out to be another very colorful Dypsis.

[BS Man about Palms]

You know Bo, if the leaves were more curled on that "Mony, Mony" it could look like an OCWS, which then might lend creedence to the name "Orange Crownshaft, White Shaft"....

[cfkingfish]

Another clue in determining the species of a palm, or whether one is entirely different than another, is to save a few seed of the palm for comparison. D. mananjarensis have very small seed, where D. carlsmithii has a D. lutescens type of ellipsoid seed, and is larger. I would put money on the D. tokoravina commonly sold is actually D. carlsmithii. The Dypsis genus in itself is variable, where tomentum and colors will not determine a new species, but maybe a variation.

[Matt in SD]

Bo's post reminded me of why I think that Dypsis 'big curly' may be D canaliculata...in POM, it says that the malagasy name for D canaliculata is monymony (or something very similar sounding, I'll have to check when I get home).  

Christian, you may be right, but I still think the current "tokoravina" is a different palm from carlsmithii...definitely very similar.  I'll have to go home tonight and stare at them some more.

Matt

[bgl]

Matt,

yes, you're correct. Decided to check and acc. to POM, one of two local names is Monimony. Unfortunately no photo in POM and it reports its conservation status as 'Possibly extinct; not seen since 1951'. Needless to say, a population of these could have been found since POM was written.

Looking at the timeline of mine, this is what I find: I have a total of four of these. The first 3 from Floribunda, and the last one from Hawaii Palm Company (but I'm convinced they acquired it from Floribunda and then grew it up to a larger size). My first two were in 4 inch pots, acquired in 1997 & 98. The third one was in a 1G pot, acquired in 1999. And the last one (and that's the one in the photo above) was acquired as a 5G in 2001. My guess is that these 4 all came from the very same seed batch, probably germinated in late 1996. That would point to early 1996 when the seed was collected. And POM was published in 1995.

Bo-Göran

[Dypsisdean]

Christian brought up an interesting point. The seed can be invaluable in determining the ID of a palm. Wouldn't we like to have detailed close up pics of the seed of all of these palms. If only the growers would have done so before planting. Perhaps it should become standard procedure for these "unknown" species.

[bgl]

Christian and Dean,

Excellent point and a good idea. From now on I'm going to take photos of the seeds I collect from my own palms and add those photos to our website.

Bo-Göran

[Dypsisdean]

Bo,

If anyone would pick up on this form of documentation, I knew it would be you.  

[Moose]