Dypsis utilis

[Dr. George]

Dypsis utilis is one of my favorites. Thought this one might be of interest.

Obtained as 15 gal from Bill Austin in fall of 2010 and planted out directly. Pictured (lower right) Spring of 2011:

 

Pic Spring 2012:

 

By February 2018 has grown quite a bit:

 

The main stem has split into 2 separate stems:

 

And each of those stems has split again, so now have 4 individual stems:

 

And now we're getting some nasty flower spikes forming on the main trunk below the first split:

 

Aloha - gmp

 

 

 

[Jesse]

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing!

[quaman58]

Awesome looking thing. At the SoCal palm meeting a couple weeks ago, Jeff Markus spent a fair amount of time on this palm. Very cool..

[Dr. George]

Thank you both for your kind comments. As you know there are a couple of palms that look similar (i.e. D. fibrosa and D. crinita). Interestingly, I touched base with Jeff last year to confirm the ID of this one. - gmp

[quaman58]

As a point of interest, I had a beautifully growing palm purchased as D. crinita, but lost it to a rare gopher attack 4 years ago. A year later I planted a D. utilis in it's place figuring it would perform similarly. It has struggled mightily, sun burning easily & seeming to require more water than the former. The last Santa Ana dry spell fried it so bad, I thought it was a fungal attack in the growing points. But then the top two leaves unfurled & now I have a 2 headed, 2 leaf palm. Whether it's actually a different species at all or a different one requiring different conditions, or a bum plant or what, I can't really say. I wish it would make up it's mind though. Those red emergent leaves are the best.

[palmad Merc]

Here is one in Sydney botanical gardens

[Dr. George]

On 2/6/2018, 5:24:14, palmad Merc said:

Here is one in Sydney botanical gardens

They sure like to trim it up. I much prefer the fuller, bushy look with lots of fronds. But regardless of how they trim the fronds, the fibers are way so cool. - gmp 

[Moose]

Dr. George - you may see that beauty seeding soon