Veitchia ID made easy??

[fastfeat]

Anyone out there have any quick and easy (or down and dirty?) ways to separate the Veitchia species commonly  used in S Fl landscapes, preferably without having to measure seed diameter or count pinnae with binoculars?

I spent some time at Fairchild when I first moved to S Fl from SoCal trying to "absorb" the differences between V. arecina, V. spiralis, V. joannis and V. winin planted there. I'm usually pretty good at this, but I left, telling myself I'd get better at their ID once I got "rooted" in FL. Well, two years later, I still feel like a guy taking the test for color blindness and guessing when he reaches the card with the number he can't differentiate...(Sorry ladies...)

What makes it worse, I do tree inventories and have to teach tree ID to others...

The following pics are from Broward Co. I was thinking the ones with the more drooping pinnae are V. winin (Top photo, Left and second photo). And the ones with the more plumose fronds as V. arecina (Top photo, Right and third photo). Or are these reasonable variations within one species?

[Davidl]

I would say it is V. arecina as they are wide spead across florida.Here is mine  

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

FastFeat,

I wish I could help you.  I am a native and can't tell the difference.  The only one I can ID is the winin and that is when it is in fruit.  It's fruit is MUCH smaller than the others.  Unfortunately it is very common to have different Veitchias planted in the same groups or landscapes.  Just around the corner from me is a median planted in winins and probably arecina.  The nurseryman, the landscape contractor and the landscape inspector all passed them off as the same species, but now that they have fruited it is obvious they are not all the same.

Jerry

[mike in kurtistown]

It's my understanding that Veitchia joannis is the one with very pendant leaves like Clinostigma or Rhopaloblaste. They also have huge seeds.

I have looked at the monograph on Veitchia by Zona & Fuller describing four species each from Vanuatu and Fiji island chains. On the Vanuatu species, Z-F say that "fruit and seed size ....... were found to vary from island to island in no recognizable pattern", thus submerging montgomeriana and macdanielsii into arecina. There seems to be a need for more detailed study, I believe.

[fastfeat]

Thanks for the help, folks. I don't feel so stoopid now...

Jerry, do you have a location on that median so I can go look at the seed size of the trees there? I'm working in Pompano; the trees I shot are off Atlantic (median) and at City Yard (Dixie Hwy).

Thanks--

Ken.