Attalea crassispatha in South Florida

[Mandrew968]

I am posting these pictures because I know that this palm is basically unknown to a lot of you palmlovers. It is one of my favorites and maybe the most significant Attalea in the very large and enigmatic genus. Native to southwest Haiti, this palm is critically endangered. It's also the only known species of Attalea native to the Caribbean. Once you have seen one, these palms are pretty discernable. This palm should also go into the 'Monsters' category as it is a real beast! These palms look like a Coconut on steroids. It's very cold sensitive and extremely rare--only a few colonies known of locally and no one I know of has one privately(not much room for such a monster in most gardens). These palms are starting to set seed so they can't be exceedingly rare for long... Hope you enjoy!

[Mandrew968]

This population is in Homestead.

[Mandrew968]

Very large canopy.

[Mandrew968]

[Mandrew968]

These guys must do well in Hurricanes--they have flared bases.

[Mandrew968]

Last picture for this colony. Amazing palms!

[Kostas]

Awesome palms! Great to see these finally fruiting, I was searching for flowering/fruiting ones when I was in SoFL in 2010 and saw no reproductive specimen

[Mandrew968]

Ed, you might want to put these on Palmpedia as they are good shots of mature plants in cultivation--I will get more from the other colonies...

[Mandrew968]

9 minutes ago, Kostas said:

Awesome palms! Great to see these finally fruiting, I was searching for flowering/fruiting ones when I was in SoFL in 2010 and saw no reproductive specimen

It might have been too early for them, at that time. I know of only one plant that would have been mature at that time(fairchild).

[Kostas]

I went and saw them in Fairchild as well back then, none had ever flowered then

[Monòver]

I never have seen this palms. They are amazing.

They are like a mix between Cocos and Roystonea oleracea.

Thanks for post the pictures and for the information.

[Mandrew968]

4 hours ago, Kostas said:

I went and saw them in Fairchild as well back then, none had ever flowered then

Kostas, you are right and you are wrong--right in that the colony that they had planted was immature at that time. However, in the jungle that cuts from the festival field out to the back parking, there is a monster one in there. It is all by itself and is so large, I mistook it for a regular Attalea more than once! must have been planted over 50 years ago...

[Mandrew968]

2 hours ago, Monòver said:

They are like a mix between Cocos and Roystonea oleracea.

Hey, I like that description! 

[Howeadypsis]

They look strong sturdy palms

[Kostas]

I am not sure i saw a truly huge A. crassispatha, they only had like 2-3m of trunk with huge leafs on top so i probably missed that one. Must be a wonderful one!

[Mandrew968]

9 hours ago, Kostas said:

I am not sure i saw a truly huge A. crassispatha, they only had like 2-3m of trunk with huge leafs on top so i probably missed that one. Must be a wonderful one!

Yeah, it has over 30 feet of trunk now.

[Alicehunter2000]

Always rely on Andrew to come up with some cool virtually unknown species. Great looking palms.

[rick]

Great to hear that some are seeding. They would look great in the right landscape. Here's some of the ones at Montgomery

 

[Zeeth]

Great pictures! You say it's cold sensitive; how would you estimate it compared with a coconut? 

[Jeff Searle]

53 minutes ago, Zeeth said:

Great pictures! You say it's cold sensitive; how would you estimate it compared with a coconut? 

Keith,

    These palms over the years have proven to be pretty tough and can take brief periods of very low 30's. Some of these have been planted out now in the 15 year period, give or take a few. So they've seen some good cold. I would compare them right close to a coconut.

[Mandrew968]

Jeff is right on with his estimate--Some could succumb and some have, but once they start to trunk, they seem to be pretty strong. I know FIU had one that was struggling for the longest time. Scott Zona got that one installed if I am not mistaken.

[Zeeth]

Thank you both for the info! 

[Mandrew968]

Ok, just got back from MBC. Always a pleasure to work with them!! While I was out there, I was able to get those updated pics of this amazing palm.

[Mandrew968]

These palms have grown. A little perspective with the shoe selfie.

[Mandrew968]

Of this colony, there looks to be only one mature tree, so far...

[Mandrew968]

Last shot of these monsters today! Thanks Montgomery Botanical Center for being such a great botanical partner to us. This is of the mature tree. Hope you enjoyed. Two colonies down--one more to go...

[JasonD]

They look a bit like a coconut x Jubaea hybrid. Cool post, Mandrew968: a conservation-through-cultivation success story.

[Mandrew968]

On 7/15/2016, 3:17:10, JasonD said:

They look a bit like a coconut x Jubaea hybrid. Cool post, Mandrew968: a conservation-through-cultivation success story.

Hi Jason. We have a lot of those types of stories in the palm world. One of the great aspects of this hobb-session...

[Matthew92]

Here's a picture I took of what I think is an Attalea crassispatha at the Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead/Redlands, FL. This was in June of 2010 and many of the very tender palms in the area had cold damage from that past winter. Looks like this one has damage as well. Someone I know who lived nearby said it got to at least freezing (enough to burn coconuts) and I almost want to say that they said there was some frost as well.

[Mandrew968]

Yeah, even as a large palm, it looks to have burned or been damaged...

[Mandrew968]

On 7/12/2016, 9:08:50, Kostas said:

I went and saw them in Fairchild as well back then, none had ever flowered then

 

It took me a while, but I finally got the pics--this is the one you missed and the largest one in the United States, no doubt. 

[Mandrew968]

This palm is the largest Attalea crassispatha, outside Haiti, I would bet.

[Mandrew968]

When the second wave of plants came in, they planted this one with the original guy.

[jardinierpalmiertrat]

 beaitiful, i love the genus attalea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Zeeth]

Any idea how old the super tall one is? It seems that this species takes on a slightly different look once they're that size, with the leaves drooping below the horizon.

[Mandrew968]

16 hours ago, Zeeth said:

Any idea how old the super tall one is? It seems that this species takes on a slightly different look once they're that size, with the leaves drooping below the horizon.

I wasn't able to figure it out from the tag.

[Zeeth]

I found an article published in 1996 that says that the oldest A. crassispatha at Fairchild is/are over 30 years old, so at this point it must be at least 50 years old.

http://www.bgci.org/worldwide/article/0369/

[Zeeth]

Here's a nice article that details successful fruiting of an Attalea crassispatha in cultivation. Hopefully this means that it will soon become available to us palm collectors. 

(As a head's up, the name of the URL is mis-leading)

http://www.palmbeachpalmcycadsociety.com/palms/documents/AcrocomiaCrispa.pdf

The color of the fruit almost look Syagrus-like. 

[Mandrew968]

Very cool Keith. Was this article recent? I would imagine, maybe palmtalk has inspired that article?,, very happy to see...

[Zeeth]

54 minutes ago, Mandrew968 said:

Very cool Keith. Was this article recent? I would imagine, maybe palmtalk has inspired that article?,, very happy to see...

The article comes from the October 2016 Palm Beach Palm and Cycad society newsletter, so it's quite recent!