Big Bend National Park, Texas

[GoatLockerGuns]

Not really a park associated with palms per se; however, there are some interesting Phoenix sp. stands (probably Phoenix dactylifera) located at the Hot Springs Historic Area of the park along the Rio Grande.  They were probably planted there before it became a National Park (possibly by the homesteader J.O. Langford).  They are located at 29.177583103922945, -102.99869840224089.  These pictures were taken on March 20, 2022.  I spoke to one of the park rangers there about them.  They said that the National Park Service does absolutely nothing to maintain these palm; they are left to their own devices.  There is a hot spring along the Rio Grande nearby.  It is heated by some sort of geothermal process that keeps the water at around 105F (40.5C).

[Little Tex]

I wish somebody would trim them...

[KsLouisiana]

I wonder how cold it got down to in 2021? Any ideas?

[GoatLockerGuns]

On 10/17/2022 at 6:53 AM, KsLouisiana said:

I wonder how cold it got down to in 2021? Any ideas?

I could not find a weather station with historical data in that section of Big Bend National Park; however, according to Weather Underground, it got down to 12.2F on February 15, 2021 at the KTXBIGBE10 station near the park entrance on U.S. 385.  See below:

Big Bend National Park is a huge park, and that station is at the north end of it.  I would have thought that they would have had a weather station at Rio Grande Village nearby, I guess not.  These Phoenix dactylifera are at the far south end of the park (not too far from Rio Grande Village), right along the Rio Grande.  I doubt it got that cold...and I doubt there was a significant snow/ice event that far south.  There were some Phoenix dactylifera that survived single digits in the San Antonio area; most notably, at the Riverwalk and at the Oblate School of Theology.  There were 6 planted out in the open at the Oblate School of Theology; of that, 3 survived.  Of the three that survived, 2 have new growth on the main trunk and suckers, and one trunk died, but the suckers regrew from the bottom.