Corkscrew palm ?

[The Silent Seed]

As you all know, some palm seeds take forever to germinate - and sometimes I give up too early - and I constantly have baby palms pop up in unexpected places, since I re-use all of my potting mix  -  I enjoy these surprises - and a few have me completely baffled.

A few have come up and have one leaf each, tightly wound, like a corkscrew. 4 or 5 have come up this way - so obviously it's not just a "one time aberration." Which palms begin with a corkscrew leaf? 

I've never seen this before - and have had baby palms popping up all over, for years now without anything like this, so these must have come from a batch of seed that I gave up on. 

Yes, I took photos - but who knows if the site will let me post them. I'll try later. 

 

[Kai]

I've seen Phoenix canariensis and Sabal minor seedlings start off like this. It was caused by the cotyledonary sheath not being able to grow straght down. In this case due to a pot not deep enough. They finally grew out of it.

[The Silent Seed]

I grow both of those and have never experienced this. (Pot height, etc has no effect on how they look, in my personal experience. The corkscrew palms are in pots that are about 14 inches deep, so it's definitely not related to that - but interesting input.) 

In fact, I sow my Sabals and Phoenix canariensis in very shallow pots - never one odd leaf. 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

I've had a handful of cidp, a few sabal riverside, two washingtonia and one jubaea that did this. They all grew out of it though.

[The Silent Seed]

Interesting - did you see any reason for them to do this? 

They resemble Sabal, but with extra-thin leaves - Guess time will tell! 

[Pal Meir]

7 hours ago, santoury said:

Interesting - did you see any reason for them to do this? 

They resemble Sabal, but with extra-thin leaves - Guess time will tell! 

That is not a corkscrew palm, it is a drill bit palm!

[Moose]

Let's see the seed, not sure its even a palm seedling ? ? ?    

[The Silent Seed]

Haha - yes, drillbit palms! Hopefully they'll keep this form to some extent! 

For those that "outgrew it" - how long did it take to outgrow it? 

[Kai]

6 hours ago, santoury said:

Haha - yes, drillbit palms! Hopefully they'll keep this form to some extent! 

For those that "outgrew it" - how long did it take to outgrow it? 

Just a couple of leaves,  maybe 3

[The Silent Seed]

Sounds good - fingers crossed! 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

I've only had one drillbit seedling like this.  Most make bigger loops or circles; roughly 1" diameter.  After about the fourth leaf they are straightened out.

[cfkingfish]

That's quite a twisty first leaf there. I will see a lot of twisty leaves at first from deep rooting palms like Bismarck, Corypha, and Copernicia. They will grow out of that as said before after a few leaves. Usually it is a matter of shallow pots, but sometimes it can be a light issue. 

[Pal Meir]

We have two different phenomena: The “corkscrew” growth results from a curved cotyledonary sheath (as mentioned above by @Kai e.g. caused by shallow pots), but the “drill bit“ growth presented here has other reasons.

[The Silent Seed]

It's funny you should mention the Bismarkia - because they (all) came up in deep pots of Bismarkia seeds! But they are not Bismarkia - right ? 

 

[Jeff Searle]

Like others stated, they will out grow this by their 3rd or 4th leaf. I've had several over the years do this.