Palm avenues in Sri Lanka

[kepel]

Nice to meet my fellow palm enthusiasts. Now here are more fetishes, this time with unusual palm 'avenues'. 1st is one lined with the double coconuts:

Coryphas:

Borassus:

All photos were at the royal botanical gardens in Peradeniya.

[Jeff in St Pete]

Fantastic! Thanks for posting them.

[palmsnbananas]

Avenue of double coconuts... seriously... Holy crap!!

[Stevetoad]

Great photos...gigantic fan palms...hard to beat that

[Daryl]

Heavenly! Thanks for the photos...any more?

Daryl

[Kumar]

Great Photos. But more..?

[DoomsDave]

MORE!

[Walter John]

C'est magnifique.

[Ken Johnson]

Wow Kepel you made a BIG splash with your first post. Thank you very much and welcome here. This may be the first time Sri lanka has been featured here. I hope you have more.

[kepel]

The civil war in the past two decades prevented more tourists from visiting Sri Lanka ("Ceylon'). But the reality is that more often than not, the country was actually quite stable, with only occasional reminders of the past conflicts. It's really a gem of a country worth visiting. More from the botanical gardens:

Oil palms are also common

The size of these Coryphas is evident from the two people sitting underneath the pair of palms

Not palm related, but since were on the topic of 'BIG', I just had to include this. This is a Buddhist stupa that dates from the 2nd century BC and looks new because it has been maintained consistently. By the 4th century AD, it was considered to be the 3rd largest structure in the ancient world after the 2 pyramids in Egypt. At least that's the guides tell you. For scale, look at the size of the people on the lower left.

[Kris]

Thanks for those beautiful visuals....

Love,

kris

[Xenon]

An avenue of double cocos... :drool: Don't be afraid to post more pics...

Jonathan

[bgl]

Kepel,

Thanks a lot for those outstanding photos. An avenue with Lodoiceas is certainly unique!

Bo-Göran

[PalmatierMeg]

Wow, just wow.

[palmcurry]

Don't see pictures from Sri Lanka hardly ever. Enjoyed looking at them.

[kepel]

I think I've managed to go on overdrive with photos, so what's a few more . Saw some fascinating birds, including this iridescent blue Ceylon kingfisher:

Here's a baby elephant offering lotus flowers at the end of its trunk to Buddha in one of the many Buddhist shrines in the country

That same huge stupa featured earlier but this time from afar

Finally, here's a typical Sri Lankan breakfast. Fried egg on coconut milk pancakes eaten with various small curry dishes, usually including some kind of fish curry. On a spiciness scale of 1-10, about a 10

[Manolitus]

Kepel,

My goodness, thanks for those incredible pictures. We have A LOT of palm enthusiasts that have travelled the world and posted an un-Godly amount of pictures, but like a few have already said, this is the first time I have seen so many pictures coming from Sri Lanka. I had read over the years that Sri Lanka, because of its unique geographic location, had been one of the very very very few places in the world that had fruiting double coconuts outside of Seychelles, but I never imagined that row of palms.

Absolutely spectacular. Somebody, a long time ago, had the brilliant idea to bring over a bunch of nuts and have those rows line up over the many many years it takes for those palms to grow.

Man, just really mind blowing. I would have thought this impossible outside of Seychelles. And as one who has visited those idyllic islands, I hope to now visit Sri Lanka one day.

Thank you.

Manny

[realarch]

If palms weren't enough then you have to throw in such delicious looking food. Fantastic.

[trioderob]

thats a hell of a first post

[Trópico]

How did I miss this? What a BEAUTIFUL country, and impressive palms! Thanks kepel, means a lot!

[Kim]

You had me with the first shot of the Lodoicea-lined avenue!

[sarasota alex]

Awesome!!!

[KPL]

Marcelo,

Nice meeting you also, WELCOME! Your whole post is spectacular! As Ken said, what a great first post!

Those double coconuts, WOW!!!! I have three in the garden, planted in 1999 obtained, directly from the Seychelles.

Looking forward to more of your posr!

Karolyn

[Gileno Machado]

speechless here

[Palm crazy]

As we say in the PNW...Yoo'Lala!

[palmislandRandy]

Wow, Just magnificent photos

Randy

[BigFrond]

Wow! The first three pictures are awesome!

[Takil-Explorer]

Well thats certainly a royal botanical garden with all those avenues planted in a very royal way. I have never seen an avenue with 16 Loidicea maldivica! And maybe more. Probably the largest number of Lodoicea in cultivation at one place! I should go there one day!

Alexander

[Peter Pacific]

Kepel, these are extraordinary photographs! In just a few short years my Coryphas and Borassus sent around the globe from Kris will look exactly like that!

Thanks for the post. Peter