Carpentaria acuminata seed

[Dave-Vero]

Since I did a photo of a backyard Sabal minor and its seeds, why not the Carpentaria that towers over it?

Here's the prosperous tree. I need to harvest those seeds or remove the infructescences to keep from having seedlings all over.

The seeds don't clean quite as nicely as I'd like, but this seems a reasonable start.

[tropicbreeze]

I have Carpy seedlings carpeting all around my place, plus individual ones spread further out by birds and flying foxes. But they form dense thickets in the garden if you're not onto them constantly. Have thought about cutting out the inflorescences but a lot of them are over 20 metres above the ground. Some one should invent some form of chemical sterilization of the trees, without affecting them otherwise. On the other hand though, they are my nicest weeds.

[Dave-Vero]

I'm somewhat surprised they haven't become pests in Florida, Of course we're more like Queensland, with significant cold. Mine will probably freeze in a super-bad winter. Nothing wrong with short-term garden plants.

Another factor in Florida is that Carpys don't seem to have made it big in the nursery trade. Mine were propagated in back yards.

I haven't yet seen eastern gray squirrels in the carpys. They do feed on Archontophoenix fruits, as seen here. Tim Flannery rather liked our tree rats--truly diurnal small mammals that are easy to observe. They're pests in Britain and non-eastern North America.

[tropicbreeze]

By day the Torresian Imperial Pigeons feed on them, by night it's the Flying Foxes. But the fruits are very toxic to most other animals. After feeding on them the droppings are black and if you happen to leave your car parked under them, it'll strip the paint off. It appears your squirrels aren't stupid enough to be caught out by the delectable looking fruit.

[redant]

I cut the inflorescences off mine otherwise I'd be over run by seedlings. Love the palm but it's such a heavy seeder and once they get past my 30ft pole saw I can no longer sterilize them.

[Dave-Vero]

If I get an adequately tall pole saw, the palms will merely outgrow it. I've become a fan of Silky saws.

We don't yet have any south Asian or Australian doves and of course no fruit-eating bats.

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

Get one of those little drones, invent and install some type of automated lopper and send it up to cut off your Carpy seed heads.

[Dave-Vero]

I expect Sherrill, the big arborist retailer, will be selling saw-drones sometime soon. A few months later, one will be featured in a horror movie.

Actually, if I had a vastly better arm, it might be feasible to use one of those rope-saw deals where you throw a rope over a limb to be sawed, then pull up the sawing device.