Dwarf Med fan

[aztropic]

Came across this interesting specimen that looks nothing like it's mates. 5 gallon size and seems that it will keep this miniature,bushy structure.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[wimmie]

Convince yourself that it isn't the variety Vulcano, which should have broad and almost thornless petioles. If the palms have the normal size of petioles, with thorns, this could very well be the variety with small leaves in a very dense crown, a beauty!

[Darold Petty]

Definitely not Vulcano, very nice, I would buy it !

I  saw the small, bunched form for sale at the street side vendors in Paris, photo image somewhere 

[Looking Glass]

Did you immediately grab it and sprint to the checkout counter, manically laughing like a supervillain?!?!   

[Darold Petty]

One could easily have a garden featuring just the many forms of Chamaerops. 

[aztropic]

2 hours ago, Looking Glass said:

Did you immediately grab it and sprint to the checkout counter, manically laughing like a supervillain?!?!   

No. I am fully planted out in my yard so something else would have to be removed if I wanted to add that form...

It IS a very special plant though as I have seen thousands of med fans,but never a total dwarf example like this.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[NickJames]

Omg I want it

[Darold Petty]

I would buy it now, and figure out it's dispostion later !    

[aztropic]

9 hours ago, Darold Petty said:

Definitely not Vulcano, very nice, I would buy it !

I  saw the small, bunched form for sale at the street side vendors in Paris, photo image somewhere 

Yep. Looks just like that one. Very petit and compact; hence "Compacta"

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[wimmie]

Looking at the photo with the petioles, they are relatively broad and almost thornless, and the fact that they are sold as compacta, I would say: definitively vulcano!

[aztropic]

Don't think it's 'vulcano'.  I grew a batch of those from seed and have 1 single stem in my yard. This new find already has several heads at this small size,and is very petit,with each frond no bigger than a hand.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

[hbernstein]

I wish that there was more commercial interest in these dwarf forms here in the U.S.A. Like others on this forum, I would love to get one! 

That one looks especially charming!

Edited March 1, 2022 by hbernstein
punctuation

[PalmatierMeg]

17 hours ago, Darold Petty said:

One could easily have a garden featuring just the many forms of Chamaerops. 

Definitely! I would take it.

[wimmie]

1 hour ago, aztropic said:

Don't think it's 'vulcano'.  I grew a batch of those from seed and have 1 single stem in my yard. This new find already has several heads at this small size,and is very petit,with each frond no bigger than a hand.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

Vulcano suckers freely as a still young plant! But, above all, the broad petioles and the almost absencs of thorns give vulcano away!

[aztropic]

The vulcano's I grew from RPS seed never suckered and remained single stem plants as far as I know. I only kept one for myself.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[EJPalm05]

17 minutes ago, aztropic said:

The vulcano's I grew from RPS seed never suckered and remained single stem plants as far as I know. I only kept one for myself.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

When those seeds are ready could I have some?

[aztropic]

Actually,I have already sold them all... Just shipped out the last 50 seeds I was going to grow myself,but let a buyer have them as I found several sprouts under the mother plant which is enough for me. There is always next year. Seeds are ripe by end of October.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[aztropic]

A few seedlings popping up under mama.

It takes about 3 years of growing to sort out the plants with the vulcano trait,so definitely a long term project. Not every seed produces the form,even though they came off a parent with the trait.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[tinman10101]

very cool. i have a special place for this plant and would have picked up that dwarf form in a heartbeat.  @Darold Petty is on point.  a garden with just the different variability of this species would be very cool just like a rose garden but with just chaemorops.   some of my volcano are pup when small and some are so slow and just remained single trunk. 

[aztropic]

Succumbing to peer pressure,I decided to rescue this little guy after all. It was still for sale,so I guess it was meant to be. Time to have a closer look at what this form is all about.

To start,it came with conflicting labels...

It currently has 8 heads.

Most fronds are about 3-4 inches wide,with the biggest at 5 inches. Petioles are flat and smooth for the most part,(at this size anyway) with VERY compact, upright growth. 

Lime green coloring,with NO traces of silver.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[aztropic]

Here's same size med fans I grew from seed to compare. There is no comparison...

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

[aztropic]

Here is a silver med fan I'm growing. Fairly bushy,but tons of extremely sharp spines; even as a small plant.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

[Darold Petty]

Scott, I'm glad you purchased this palm !  Let's look at a big picture question.   The ones I saw in Paris had professional labels, so the grower must have a stable and reliable seed source for this form, or has used tissue culture. The Parisian palms I saw, about 10 pots, looked as alike as peas in a pod.  Perhaps they have been tissue cultured ?

The one you purchased looks just the same, but the label states it was grown in San Marcos, CA.  Has the CA grower purchased material from the European grower ?? Unlikely,  since then there should be  many,  not just one.  

  The one you purchased was an outlier within it's inventory, so perhaps it is a random expression of the same small form ?  Were the other palms also from Plant Source growers ?

Who knows anything about Plant Source growers in San Marcos ??   

 

[aztropic]

Med fans are always very variable. You can even see differences between others all from the same grower in the original picture. That batch was labeled cerifera on the pot. They had about another dozen med fans in a different area labeled just humilis that were exactly the same plants as the cerifera batch. The plant I bought was just an oddball that happens once in every several thousand plants.

Last summer,I came across a 20 gallon size med fan that had all the vulcano traits,while several others in the same group were standard med fans. It was just being sold as a standard med fan along with the rest of them.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

[wimmie]

20 hours ago, aztropic said:

Here is a silver med fan I'm growing. Fairly bushy,but tons of extremely sharp spines; even as a small plant.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

This is Chamaerops humilis var. Cerifera from Maroc. Requires full sun to maintain the blue color!

[wimmie]

20 hours ago, aztropic said:

Here's same size med fans I grew from seed to compare. There is no comparison...

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona

This is surely not vulcano. The crown is far too open!

[wimmie]

This is a typical Chamaerops humilis var. vulcano, with broad petioles and a very dense crown, which causes that the leaves cannot unfold freely!

[Darold Petty]

Wimmie, do you think the ones I saw in Paris are tissue cultured ?

[aztropic]

57 minutes ago, wimmie said:

This is surely not vulcano. The crown is far too open!

These plants in this picture were never represented as vulcano... They are just same size plant med fans shown to compare average frond size with the tiny fronds on the newly purchased plant.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[aztropic]

1 hour ago, wimmie said:

This is Chamaerops humilis var. Cerifera from Maroc. Requires full sun to maintain the blue color!

This plant is actually grown in 100% shade on the north side of a building,and only receives full sun for about 2weeks over the summer.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[wimmie]

1 hour ago, aztropic said:

This plant is actually grown in 100% shade on the north side of a building,and only receives full sun for about 2weeks over the summer.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

Wow, I would look for a more sun exposed position!

[wimmie]

1 hour ago, aztropic said:

These plants in this picture were never represented as vulcano... They are just same size plant med fans shown to compare average frond size with the tiny fronds on the newly purchased plant.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

Oke, I'm with you again!

[wimmie]

2 hours ago, Darold Petty said:

Wimmie, do you think the ones I saw in Paris are tissue cultured ?

I don't know whether that's done or not.

[tinman10101]

1 hour ago, wimmie said:

I don't know whether that's done or not.

 

3 hours ago, Darold Petty said:

Wimmie, do you think the ones I saw in Paris are tissue cultured ?

I would bet they are mass produced and tissue cultured darold.  I've seen videos of how TC is used in the mediterranean region for phoenix dactylifera to produce specific date clones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Ux9SHJnFM

[gilles06]

A nursery in France is selling this form https://www.achat-vente-palmiers.com/en/hardy-palms/1659-2437-chamaerops-vulcano-compact-form.html

[aztropic]

One thing I've noticed that seems to stand out with the European grown 'vulcano' is that the frond undersides are always white. The plants I'm coming across in Arizona that have a lot of the vulcano traits,are ALWAYS a brighter lime green than standard med fans around them,but have little to no noticeable white,anywhere on the fronds. Regardless,I like the fact that these rare mutants are mostly spineless. It makes the trimming process much less bloody!  

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona