Three new questions from Kinshasa

[mpiodi]

Dear friends

I present you three other palms. I collected their seeds somewhere in Africa some years ago.

Here is the result. Are they already tall enough to be identified?

Thanks for your efforts

The first one with crownshaft resembles my arecas but as the fronds are almost undivided I am doubting.

What do you think?

[mpiodi]

The trunk

[mpiodi]

A freshly developed new leaf

[mpiodi]

The second one is a fan palm. Still a bit small

[mpiodi]

Closer

[mpiodi]

And the underside of a leaf

[mpiodi]

The last one seems to develop a crownshaft but it's not yet clearly visible

[mpiodi]

the trunk

[mpiodi]

a leaf

[kylecawazafla]

I am not sure about #1. #2 may be an AMAZING palm that is very rare in cultivation... a Sclerosperma manii!! If it is that, you're very very lucky and many people may ask you for more seeds! #3 looks like a Licuala grandis, and #4 looks like an Archontophoenix cunninghamaniana!

[cfkingfish]

Looks like #1 is Bentinckia nicobarica, and Kyle is right, #2 is Licuala grandis, and #3 is A. cunninghamiana. I wish I could come visit!

[kylecawazafla]

Is that a witch doctor in your avatar, by the way? It is still very different, but in many ways similar to a witch doctor I saw in Malawi. I'm not sure about the precise spelling, but over there they call it a "Guru Umkulu". What do they call it in the Congo?

[mpiodi]

Is that a witch doctor in your avatar, by the way? It is still very different, but in many ways similar to a witch doctor I saw in Malawi. I'm not sure about the precise spelling, but over there they call it a "Guru Umkulu". What do they call it in the Congo?

Yes, that is a witch doctor and they call him here "Nganga nkisi". That's Lingala and means: expert, specialiste for all kind of medicaments, drugs, potions etc.

[mpiodi]

Looks like #1 is Bentinckia nicobarica, and Kyle is right, #2 is Licuala grandis, and #3 is A. cunninghamiana. I wish I could come visit!

Thanks Christian! As there are no other ideas or comments I suppose that you are right with your classifications of my three palms.

When you said Bentinckia nicobarica I looked in my palm book and I found that the picture of it correponds exactly with some huge crownshaft-palms not far from here in the neighbourhood of which I remember having taken some years ago some seeds from their large and impressive inflorescence.

Maybe I should better notice and systematize in the future my collections and plantings in my "pépinière."

Regards

wolfgang

[Don Little]

Looks like #1 is Bentinckia nicobarica, and Kyle is right, #2 is Licuala grandis, and #3 is A. cunninghamiana. I wish I could come visit!

#2 looks a lot like my Licuala peltata var. sumawongii. At that size how can you tell the difference between the two.

[cfkingfish]

Wolfgang, no problem, would be happy to help.

Don, it is hard to tell between the two, but at that size L. grandis looks like it has almost a light mottling to it, and the leaf itself is a bit more "ruffled". L peltata var. sumawongii is more a full green and has a concave frond base, then goes convex, but this is only at that stage. Thats my take on it.

[Don Little]

Make sense Christian now that you mention it you can see a difference in coloration. Thanks for the explanation, I only wish I could grow a L grandis outside here.