Fan,feather or fish?

[Stevetoad]

What is your favorite type of palm? Palmate? Pinnate? Or bipinnate?

My vote goes with fans. Love them things!

[MattyB]

too hard so I'll say costapalmate

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Oooh, I can smell a good thread starting! I can't actually answer the poll because I like them all. I started out with feather and fish and after staring at my giant caryotas and parajubaeas for 15 years I got used to the look and started to go nuts for fan palms of which I had too few, only braheas and trachys. I sure have played catch up this year. But I hear this is a pretty standard evolution for most palm nuts, most start out shunning fan palms going for the more tropical pinnate look first. But IMHO a pinnate only garden is pretty boring.

But I'd like to come up with a more elaborate list:

1) Crownshaft feathers: kings, rhopies, chamberyonia, etc...

2) Mediterranean feathers: phoenix and company

3) Coconutty feathers: cocos, parajubaea, beccariophoenix, some syagrus, ceroxylon etc...

4) Plumose: queen, foxtail, syagrus

5) Fish

6) Desert fans: upright like washingtonia and brahea

7) Astronomer fans: silver fans such as copernicias, bismarckia, brahea

8) Tropical fan: (not all costapalmate) livistona decora, saribus or benthamii, sabal mauritiformus, Cryosophila, liculata

9) Jurassic fans: sabals, opernicia Baileyana, bismarckia

10) Jurassic pinnate: Palms with 100+ pound fronds - dypsis Tokoravina, dypsis robusta

Note there is some overlap, for example bismarckia is 6) 7) and 9) all wrapped into one.

[MattyB]

At least we're still on the tarmac.

[Jastin]

Damn thats hard. I have to go with fan for now. first it was the feathers, then the fish, now the fan.

[Hammer]

Palmate no doubt.

[Z4Devil]

For me only feathers counts, have those palms exclusively.

[Trópico]

My favorites are irregularly split leaves which are technically feather, so I voted for feather.

[Firepalm]

I started out like almost everyone else loving the pinnate palms, but have learned to appreciate some of the palmate ones and have now included several in my garden to give it a more varied look. Still no doubt that I prefer the feather to the fan though and have to admit that I have never been enamored with the fish look and probably never will be.

Unfortunately, in SoCal most of my favorite fan species/genera either don't grow or aren't readily available, e.g., Copernicia Fallaensis, Copernicia Baileyana, Corypha, Licuala.

[Perito]

for my landscape 65% feather, 35% fan

[sonoranfans]

Love em all, but the most impressive to me are the big fans... Borassus, Corypha, bismarckia, Copernicia bailey and fallense, big sabals, blue fan palms like brahea armata, clara, copernicia hospita... But that being said, any garden that has just feathers or just fans is a bit boring to me. Just like if everything were blue, blue wouldnt be so special... Fans and feathers are complementary in texture provided int he landscape, and are best used to set each other off... like yin and yang...

Edited May 6, 2013 by sonoranfans

[Kim]

Tough one. Most of my palms are pinnate, but some of my favorites are fans, notably Kerriodoxa, Tahina, and Licuala.

[NApalm]

If fish weren't monocarpic, they'd be everywhere!

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

for my landscape 65% feather, 35% fan

When that small bismarckia in your front yard finally takes off, it will be more like 65% fan 35% feather. You need to put some plastic around that thing to get it to grow some size.

[KennyRE317]

feather

[Perito]

for my landscape 65% feather, 35% fan

When that small bismarckia in your front yard finally takes off, it will be more like 65% fan 35% feather. You need to put some plastic around that thing to get it to grow some size.

True, the Bismarckias eventually take up some space, but what I meant was if I planted 100 palms, about 65 of them would be the feather style.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Here is how well green feather mixes with blue fan: my p. cocoides looked a bit lonely so I got it an astronomer friend, a brahea clara. Yin (cocoides) and yang (clara) a match made in heaven. It was too cloudy this Morning to see the real green-blue contrast.

[pop]

Actually it hard for decision because color and texture are also the point. At first I like fan and fish then feather. But for my weather, "fish" is hard to survived but it challenge for keep them survive.

Edited May 7, 2013 by pop

[Small palm]

Overall I like feather palms the most, but I own some feathers and a fan palm. Even though I prefer feather palms my favorite palm is a fan palm, the silver Bismarckia Nobilis

[DoomsDave]

all of them

[Pedro 65]

all of them

Same as Dave,All....but not all fan feather or fish or stone scissors rock.

[JasonD]

Here is how well green feather mixes with blue fan: my p. cocoides looked a bit lonely so I got it an astronomer friend, a brahea clara. Yin (cocoides) and yang (clara) a match made in heaven. It was too cloudy this Morning to see the real green-blue contrast.

You're going to host a NorCal Palm Society meeting soon, I hope?

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Impossible to choose. How about any palm with a frond. Well, I like cycads too. Dohhh! I'm so indecisive on the important stuff!

[Funkthulhu]

Fish?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Here is how well green feather mixes with blue fan: my p. cocoides looked a bit lonely so I got it an astronomer friend, a brahea clara. Yin (cocoides) and yang (clara) a match made in heaven. It was too cloudy this Morning to see the real green-blue contrast.

You're going to host a NorCal Palm Society meeting soon, I hope?

Yes, in June, i think it's the 22nd.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Here is how well green feather mixes with blue fan: my p. cocoides looked a bit lonely so I got it an astronomer friend, a brahea clara. Yin (cocoides) and yang (clara) a match made in heaven. It was too cloudy this Morning to see the real green-blue contrast.

You're going to host a NorCal Palm Society meeting soon, I hope?

Yes, in June, i think it's the 22nd.

Oops, gave the wrong date, June 15th, not the 22nd.

[_Keith]

too hard so I'll say costapalmate

I agree, thinking about it got me constipated too.

[cassowaryhill]

Oh Gosh!! Not sure.. Used to be Plumose without a doubt but now that I live in the tropics... The more Fan (closer to circle) the better.. So licualas.. Also anything with a BIG leaf!