Butia archeri.......or purpurascens????

[buffy]

Hey folks. Bought this one from Phil 4 years ago as Butia archeri. From the looks of it, I'm thinking B. purpurascens. What say you?

[Tulio]

B. purpurascens have a spineless petiole. Yours appear to have spines.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Yours are unlikely to be archeri. I have a couple that look similar to yours in terms of the color on the bases, I thought mine were purpurascens. There looks like there is some hair that could pose as armament, but yours has actual armament.

[Kailua_Krish]

Axel,

It was my understanding that purpurascens is a reference to the purple flowers this species has, not the leaf bases which I believe are green. Also if my purpurascens is anything to go by yours looks much too robust, it is a very spindly/thin looking butia with very thin leaflets.

-Krishna

[buffy]

Yeah. I showed the picture of the light armament because my description of B. purpurascens says it shouldn't be there. But make no mistake, this thing is not a large Butia. Age-wise, this thing is probably 5 years old. The base is between a softball and a volleyball in size. Based on the pictures and descriptions I have available, it's the right size. The armament is slight but real. It's not gonna poke you. I just can't find a description that gets any closer than purpurascens.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Axel,

It was my understanding that purpurascens is a reference to the purple flowers this species has, not the leaf bases which I believe are green. Also if my purpurascens is anything to go by yours looks much too robust, it is a very spindly/thin looking butia with very thin leaflets.

-Krishna

I am pretty sure I have whatever Cameron has, not sure if it's purpurascens, that's the closest I could come up with as well. Mine have very fine leaves, much less stiff and less thick than a regular butia. So I am interested in the ID as well. Krishna, Can you post pictures of your purpurascens?

Thanks.

[Kailua_Krish]

Ill try to get a photo this weekend when I'm back in N Florida, it's not a palm I keep photos of as it grows very slowly and doesn't look like anything special. Just spindly and lax, much different than any other Butia I've ever seen.

[Alberto]

I heard the leave collor of B.purpurascens is green and not this green/grey collor and add the spines ,making it more close to B.archeri.

[Mandrew968]

Yeah. I showed the picture of the light armament because my description of B. purpurascens says it shouldn't be there. But make no mistake, this thing is not a large Butia. Age-wise, this thing is probably 5 years old. The base is between a softball and a volleyball in size. Based on the pictures and descriptions I have available, it's the right size. The armament is slight but real. It's not gonna poke you. I just can't find a description that gets any closer than purpurascens.

How big was this palm when you got it? I have 5 archeri and they are very tiny right now and have reputedly been so for a long time--trunk on the biggest is about pencil thick with 5 grass-like leaves. By the looks of your palm(if indeed archeri), it is almost completely full grown and should be flowering soon, no?

[Kailua_Krish]

Looking at it again if my recollection is correct it looks like what I bought as Butia archeri at about the same time you did '('08 or ''09 off of eBay). Mine is slightly smaller but that may be because I moved it 3 years ago because it was much bigger than I expected. I've just assumed it was something in the B paraguayensis complex. Ill try to get a photo of it this weekend too.

[Flow]

Any thoughts on this one? I bought it this spring as archeri but I have my doubts. It only had extremely long greenhouse-grown fronds then and I wasn't even sure it was pure butia at all. The nursery said it was about 7 years old and that they had grown it from seed. The petioles only have weak armament. Sorry for hijacking this thread btw

regards Flo

[buffy]

Any thoughts on this one? I bought it this spring as archeri but I have my doubts. It only had extremely long greenhouse-grown fronds then and I wasn't even sure it was pure butia at all. The nursery said it was about 7 years old and that they had grown it from seed. The petioles only have weak armament. Sorry for hijacking this thread btw

regards Flo

Flow: Yours looks closer to what I expected B. archeri to look like.

[Flow]

Before I forget. I asked Nigel Kembrey from the EPS some time ago about B.archeri and this is what he said: If you cut through a petiole near to the trunk base, every Butia archerii that I have seen has a very distinctive red coloured wood.

Well my plant has no red..

[buffy]

That's very cool to know. I studied my Lorenzi book last night, and B. catarinensis and B. capitata are candidates. I've excluded all the dwarf species. B. yatay has a lot more armament. It's too small for my to suspect B. odorata. It strikes me as a midsize palm.

[Nigel]

If you look at http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Butia/purpurascens.html you can see photos of both archeri and purpurescens. It is neither of those.

Clearly the seed must have come from the region to have been mistaken as archeri.

You can exclude catarinensis, and I also suspect that capitata ( the true one) does not have purple leaf bases although I could be wrong on that.

During my travels in Mato Grosso do Sul I did see Butias with purple leaf bases that grew trunks to around 1m high. Lorenzis book shows these as being green , however the population near Tres Lagoas has those purple leaf bases. I would say that is the palm in these photos.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

That's very cool to know. I studied my Lorenzi book last night, and B. catarinensis and B. capitata are candidates. I've excluded all the dwarf species. B. yatay has a lot more armament. It's too small for my to suspect B. odorata. It strikes me as a midsize palm.

I am really curious what you come up, I am pretty sure what I have is the same as yours.

[buffy]

Nigel: What species?

[Nigel]

Butia matogrossensis on the roadside between Campo Grande and Tres Lagoas have those same purple leaf bases, and are medium size Butias.

[Nigel]

Found a pic of it, although you cant see the purple leaf bases.

[buffy]

This sorta matches what I'm seeing. To me, it looks like a small true B. capitata. And sure enough, Lorenzi's discussion about B. matogrossensis talks about exactly that. Honestly though, as soon as this flowers, we should know for sure. If this is truly B. matogrossensis, I'd guess that would be soon.

[buffy]

Thanks for your help, Nigel

[Kailua_Krish]

Alright, here are the photos of mine that I was talking about. This first one is the one I bought as Butia purpurascens. It has been extremely slow growing, the fronds are very lax, and very green. Ive had it for almost 5 years now and it hasnt gotten much larger. It also doesnt hold many leaves.

[Kailua_Krish]

This is the one I bought as B. archeri 5 years ago, though after looking at it again I dont think it resembles y'alls as much as I thought it did

[Mandrew968]

These are my Butia archeri. I got them from a very good source so I feel good about them--I have no other Butia in the nursery.

[buffy]

I've continued to study this specimen. Without the benefit of fruit and inflorescence, my deductive reasoning suggests true Butia capitata with red leaf bases. Here's the reasoning.

1. It's locale matches the purported B. archeri identification.

2. It is currently holding around 20 fronds in the crown at a young age. More than the 14 observed as the top end in B. matogrossensis. And it also carries around 40 pair of pinnae. Much higher than observed in B. mato.

3. B. capitata can be very short.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Is there a butia odorata with red leaf bases?

[buffy]

Who knows. Again, without fruit and inflorescence, it's probably a guess. But, the pinnae count and fronds in the crown are most similar to what you'd guess of a relatively young Butia capitata. The assumption would be that a seed collector found a group of very short to trunkless B. capitata, in the expected range of B. archeri, and assumed they were B. archeri based on their locale and relative size. Seems like the most likely explanation. I have another one of these that I picked up from Phil are year ago. We'll see if it develops the same traits or if its something else.

As for the red leaf bases, perhaps there's some genetic intergrade between some of these species. In fact, it wouldn't be that strange to postulate a Butia capitata X Butia matagrossensis hybrid. They come from the same place.