Hyphaene thebaica

[PalmatierMeg]

llo Palm Lovers,

On New Years Eve we went to the HD and bought 3 palms. We planted this one today. My husband loves the idea of a branching palm. And it has really fierce black spines on its petioles. Here are some photos.

[PalmatierMeg]

More

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Meg, I found an unknown Hyphaene at Rockledge Gardens a bit more than 1 year ago. I planted it this spring and it's really responded. Of course, it's not hardy in Jacksonville so I'll have to protect it every once in a while. It's starting to look like it'll be cold next week so I may be covering soon. The one thing that really surprised me is how fast it's grown once it had a little time to get established.

[PalmatierMeg]

Keith, I have read that although they come from desert regions, they really respond when given decent soil and adequate water & fertilizer; of course, lots of sun. Ours will get all that here. I am surprised it is not hardy in S. Jax winters. I would think that desert nights would get well below freezing. Maybe they can take dry cold but not wet.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Meg, I'm not sure which species I have so I don't know if it would be exposed to subfreezing nights in situ. I found that it was stressed in a pot and developed a nasty scale infestation. I planted it in a site that really never dries out, but is on a slope so the water doesn't stand either. To get rid of the scale, I hit it with some Zerotol, a hydrogen dioxide product that is known to kill some scale populations. The Zerotol did get the scale, but a couple of the Hyphaene leaves died too! Believe it or not, Zerotol can be used on bedding plant at the concentration I applied! Anyway, before long it pushed new fronds and by now, the canopy has many more leaves than it had when I planted it. The heavy summer rains (as well as Tropical Storm Fay) didn't seem to bother it in the slightest. Now I'm really gunshy about the tender nature of the foliage and wonder if it'll withstand a JAX freeze down to 25, or the occasional bout of frost. Eventually I suppose I'll find out. It's still small so I'll make sure to protect it when those subfreezing nights approach this year.

[Tala]

Hyphaene like all Borassoids form fronds way below ground level, most of what is found at Rockledge is coriacea which also branches underground, even at a small size. The one I have has taken lows down to 23f, the foliage is tender but the palm never fails to recover in a single growing season. It should be fine in Jax for a long time, and Meg give it some room to spread, they need full sun to look their best. They like water & fert. in summertime but nothing in winter. Too much "care" and they develop bud rot. Here is one at my place, I got it from Bernie at Rockledge as well, in '94 about 1 ft tall. Now the main stem is easily past the roof in overall hgt., about 5-6 ft of wood. I keep mine cut back to just 3 trunks. The only good pic I have is too big to upload but here is one at night. It has a grayish green cast to the foliage, been flowering (male) for several yrs.

[Tala]

forgot to mention Meg yours looks like coriacea too but they are hard to separate out when young. The two that branch above ground the most are compressa and thebaica; coriacea just does so below ground, petersiana is a solo. There's a few others out there, and lots of outdated monikers, this a genus in dire need of revision.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Tala, thanks for the update! I'm much more optimistic about it's survival now. I also appreciate your descriptions of the various species (and purported species). You are certainly right about the genus needing study and organization. I will give this little guy a bit of protection while it's small and easy to cover.

[glbower]

Keith -- I bought one of those Hyphaenes at Rockledge Gardens about the same time you did. The nursery manager told me it was probably a hybrid. After much research, I concluded it was a coriacea. Mine looks a lot like Meg's except the leaves are blue. It's thriving, although it could probably use a little sunnier location.

[Brad-Tampa]

I think Hyphaene are beautiful palms if you have the space and don't mind the sharp recurved thorns. Our H. coriacea withstood the infamous '89 freeze but did suffer serious damage to the trunk as shown in the second picture.

[PalmatierMeg]

Tala & Gordon, thanks for the info. HD sold it as H. thebaica but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a misidentified H. coriacea. Hope not because my husband wants that above-the-ground branching (which isn't a given); still we like the palm. But it does get full sun all day. It has very stiff bluish leaves and even those black spines are neat. We don't feed our palms in winter and get almost no rain, although we irrigate for 45 minutes 2x per week.

Keith, I would love to see a photo of your H. coriacea.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

GLBOWER, how low did you go in 1989?

MEG, I'll get a photo this weekend.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Oops, I meant that for Brad in Tampa, not GLBower!

[Creekside]

Meg, here's my recently-planted little H. thebaica, which looks like yours, so maybe it's not mislabeled. I fell for Hyphaenes after seeing a very old one at Fairchild, lying amongst the trunks and listening to the wind blow through the leaves. If I'm lucky, I'll live long enough to do the same with mine.

[PalmatierMeg]

Thanks, Catherine. Yours & mine look like twins.

[glbower]

Keith -- I don't know what Brad's going to say about the 89 freeze but the old timers (I wasn't here yet) say it got down to 26 degrees two nights in a row here, about 90 miles south of Tampa.

[Tala]

was looking at this again, one other sp. I've forgotten to mention is dichotoma aka indica. These usually split into a pair of (near) equal sized stems early on, so this yet another possibility here, as it appears thats what Meg's is doing; coriacea will split often but not as early as dichotoma in my exp.'s w/ them. The compressa and thebaica palms take a good while to do so, some never do but these are the most spectacular of the aerial branchers. And lastly petersiana stays solo. There are some others incl. the recently described guineensis but these are rare to nonexistent in cultivation.

will testify that Brad's palm is one of the more theatrical Hyphaene in all of Fl. Out of the hundreds of palms there it is one of the first to catch your eyes, extraordinarily glaucous much more so than typical gray/green coricea. Just another specimen there I'd love to discover the source of...

[Brad-Tampa]

Keith,

If I remember right it froze for several nights with a prolonged freeze on Xmas eve down to 24F and a high the next day barely above freezing. Ray?

But not this year I hope.

Brad

[Brad-Tampa]

By the way, There is a pile of seeds under these palms, some are sprouting and although it is not easy to get the entire root system, If someone would like to try to dig a couple before I have to "weed" them give me a pm. They are however hybridized with one of the other two staminate plants in the garden.

Brad

[Meangreen94z]

On 1/2/2009 at 4:30 PM, PalmatierMeg said:

llo Palm Lovers,

 

On New Years Eve we went to the HD and bought 3 palms. We planted this one today. My husband loves the idea of a branching palm. And it has really fierce black spines on its petioles. Here are some photos.

I haven’t heard you post about this recently, I’m guessing it didn’t survive?

[PalmatierMeg]

9 hours ago, Meangreen94z said:

I haven’t heard you post about this recently, I’m guessing it didn’t survive?

It hung on for several years but eventually declined & croaked.