Rainforest Palms

[Jeff in St Pete]

This morning I drove out into the country to visit my friend who owns a spice farm. After talking and catching up for a little while, we decided to walk down through his property towards the river where it turns into dense rainforest. I've posted photos of this area before but today we walked a lot deeper into the forest and I found a few more palm species that I have never seen there before including Neonicholsonia watsonii. Unfortunately the lighting was bad and the photos didn't turn out. But here are some of the palms we saw today.

Cryosphila sp. This palm is right at the entrance to the forested area and we've walked past it many times and never noticed it. There are so many Cardulovica palmata in the area and it blended right in until I noticed the silver under the leaves today.

I'm not sure what this is. We guessed it was a juvenile Geonoma congesta. There are a couple of large clumps nearby.

A couple more photos of the same palm

[Jeff in St Pete]

Not sure what this is, maybe a Bactris sp.?

and the trunk

[Jeff in St Pete]

I think this might be Geonoma interrupta

and the trunk

[Jeff in St Pete]

This was a beautiful small palm, I have no idea what it could be

[Jeff in St Pete]

I've photographed and posted photos of this mystery palm before. It was thought to be possibly Astrocaryum. I found many more similar palms when we walked further into the forest.

[Jeff in St Pete]

Here are some more of the same palms. These were growing up on a ridge above the river. The leaves were huge on these palms!

[Jeff in St Pete]

The photos of the Neonicholsonia watsonii did not turn out, but these seedlings were growing underneath. Does anyone have experience germinating N. watsonii? Do the seedlings look like this?

[Jeff in St Pete]

A few other misc photos

[Jeff in St Pete]

Some Royals he planted over 30 years ago as seedlings. They look a little crappy since we are in the middle of the dry season.

That's a newly thatched drying hut for some of their spices. They use palm grass (Curculigo capitulata) to thatch the roof. I was told it takes 350 leaves to thatch one square meter.

[Jeff in St Pete]

After our hike we had lunch and sat on the porch watching the birds at their feeder. A pair of toucans showed up and chased the other birds away. They would fly off with a whole banana in their bill!

Hope you enjoyed the photos. Any guesses on the palms are welcomed.

[Rusty on Pine Is.]

Beautiful pics Jeff....that Cryosphila is a real head turner.

Rusty

[Paco]

Jef!! thanks for the pictures. Those Geonomas are a real beauty.

Could the palm in post nº4 be a Chamaedorea of some sort??

I´m glad to see that they use now Curculigo leafs instead understory palm leafs, curculigos are non native and they grow faster than palms. I wonder if they will be as good as palm leafs for that purpose...

[BS Man about Palms]

Great shots Jeff! Man I want to go back!!! I REALLY like the palm in post #4 whatever it turns out to be...

[Jeff in St Pete]

Thanks guys.

Paco, my friend really likes palms and fortunately he would never cut any down for thatching. Palm grass grows so fast and spreads so much that he has plenty of leaves for thatching. He said the roof should last 4-5 years with proper care.

[kristof p]

WOW, what a nice place to live and grow plants. i especially like the Cryosophila. is it a Cryosophila warscewiczii?

last year i have grown a couple of those out of seeds. very easy and fast, the first leaf already had a very white colour

[FRITO]

Nice Jeff! thanks for sharing. nothing can compare to a true rainforest!

no clue on the ID's as those palms are outta my leauge

[Jim in Los Altos]

This morning I drove out into the country to visit my friend who owns a spice farm. After talking and catching up for a little while, we decided to walk down through his property towards the river where it turns into dense rainforest. I've posted photos of this area before but today we walked a lot deeper into the forest and I found a few more palm species that I have never seen there before including Neonicholsonia watsonii. Unfortunately the lighting was bad and the photos didn't turn out. But here are some of the palms we saw today.

Cryosphila sp. This palm is right at the entrance to the forested area and we've walked past it many times and never noticed it. There are so many Cardulovica palmata in the area and it blended right in until I noticed the silver under the leaves today.

I'm not sure what this is. We guessed it was a juvenile Geonoma congesta. There are a couple of large clumps nearby.

A couple more photos of the same palm

Fantastic pictures, Thanks! I'm only guessing because my knowledge of tropical rain forest palms is marginal at best but those look like Pinanga javana to my eyes. I have five young ones and they look remarkably similar to those above.

[JungleGina]

Jeff, thanks for including the toucan pic! He is stunning! I love them!

[Salvades]

Fabulous Photos, as always.

[DoomsDave]

Yowza, maria,

smack myself up the head, as always . . ..

Howler monkeys?

Like in the legislature?

Yeah, hee hee hee I thought so.

[Jeff in St Pete]

Hi Kristof, I checked the photos on the Fairchild site and it certainly looks like Cryosophila warscewiczii, but I don't think that species is normally found here in this part of Costa Rica so I'm not sure.

Thanks Luke!

Hi Jim, thanks for the possible id. Other than some palm grass that was planted nearby as a groundcover, nothing else has been planted in this area in the 35 years that he has owned the property. He left this area untouched and did not plant any palms there so we were thinking that most of the palms growing here should be native to Costa Rica. He lives in a rural area surrounded by Ticos who normally don't have rare palm collections, so that's why we were thinking it's got to be a native palm.

Gina, I'm glad you enjoyed the toucan photo. These birds can be very mean to other birds. A few weeks ago there was a group of 7 of these toucans outside of my house causing a huge ruckus. I went out to investigate and they were fighting with a pair of mot-mot's that were nesting nearby. They are beautiful birds, but my friend dislikes them because they bully the other birds and steal all the food from the feeder.

Thanks Salvades!

Dave, We have a troup of Howler monkeys that live around here. When they get close to the house, their howling is so loud that it will wake you up from a sound sleep at 5:00 am!

[migacebo]

Jeff, Thank you for these pics, are very nice.

The 4º Pic is very similar to this pic:

Chamaedorea neurochlamys

or this other:

Chamaedorea nationsiana

¿is possible?

The two pic are in this link:

http://www.infojardin.com/foro/showthread.php?t=125225

Regards

[Jose Maria]

The Astrocaryum has flattened spines.

I took a picture of them a few days ago, never thinking of publishing, but in this case it helps with the ID.

From your photo I cannot see if the spines are flat..

Jeff, this palm could be A. standleyanum, but I never saw these whole leaves..... more like an Asterogyne martiana...?

An Asterogyne martiana that barely made it after a forest fire...no spines at all.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Jose Maria

[Jeff in St Pete]

Migacebo, thanks for the photos. Both of those photos look very similar to what I photographed. So many Chamaedorea look the same to me!

Jose Maria, the palm with the entire leaves has spines along the rib under the leaf. There were none trunking so I couldn't see any spines on the trunk. The spines under the leaves stuck out and did not lay flat. I was thinking it could be a Bactris sp. I've read that there are a few entire-leaved Bactris species in Costa Rica.