Old Brahea armata in Southside San Antonio, Texas

[GoatLockerGuns]

@richtrav told me about an old/tall Brahea armata growing on the Southside of San Antonio, Texas.  I had a meeting at Lackland AFB this morning, so I decided to stop by ahead of time and have a look for myself.  It is nestled amongst a larger planting of tall Sabal mexicana.  A very nice looking specimen with great color.

[Robert Cade Ross]

14 minutes ago, GoatLockerGuns said:

@richtrav told me about an old/tall Brahea armata growing on the Southside of San Antonio, Texas.  I had a meeting at Lackland AFB this morning, so I decided to stop by ahead of time and have a look for myself.  It is nestled amongst a larger planting of tall Sabal mexicana.  A very nice looking specimen with great color.

Very pretty:) 

[amh]

Wow! A real hidden gem.

I wonder if this was an accidental planting.

Edited November 30, 2022 by amh

[GoatLockerGuns]

14 minutes ago, amh said:

I wonder if this was an accidental planting.

Unknown.  The rest of the Sabal mexicana plantings were lined up and clearly intentional.  This one is a little off-kilter.

Google Street Maps View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3477011,-98.4870387,3a,75y,27.13h,95.57t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sA2AiozuZKaAPIkBuahNlbw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DA2AiozuZKaAPIkBuahNlbw%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D150.77898%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-us

[amh]

7 minutes ago, GoatLockerGuns said:

Unknown.  The rest of the Sabal mexicana plantings were lined up and clearly intentional.  This one is a little off-kilter.

Google Street Maps View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3477011,-98.4870387,3a,75y,27.13h,95.57t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sA2AiozuZKaAPIkBuahNlbw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DA2AiozuZKaAPIkBuahNlbw%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D150.77898%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-us

I noticed that, the direct area is heavy Sabal mexicana, but it looks like the Washingtonia robustas to the west died in '21. 

Was the fruit ripe?

Edited November 30, 2022 by amh

[GoatLockerGuns]

21 minutes ago, amh said:

Was the fruit ripe?

Not yet.

[GoatLockerGuns]

I took a walk along what I believe is called the "Museum Reach" section of the Riverwalk yesterday (between The Pearl and Downtown), and I noticed some more nice looking San Antonio Brahea armata palms.

Brahea armata #1 (right) and Brahea armata #2 (left)

Brahea armata #2

Brahea armata #3

[Axel Amsterdam]

The one in front of the stairs is fabulous. 

 

[amh]

Guess I need to visit the River walk during the off season. I just realized that H Dubya was in office the last time I visited.

[GoatLockerGuns]

7 hours ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

The one in front of the stairs is fabulous.

Some more close-up shots of it:

[Meangreen94z]

There’s a large one at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, it looked a little rough in 2019 or early 2020, when I last saw it. 

[Xerarch]

Brahea are no nice, plus hardy to boot, wish there were more around

[WattsZ]

seeds galore... id love to have them haha 

[ChrisA]

The large Brahea armata at the SA Botanical Garden is no longer.  It perished after Palmeggedon 2021. Here is a view over the palm area from Tuesday of this week.

 

In fact, there were some up on the upper level where the Robusta and Filifera are planted, and even though one recovered from the 2021 Freeze it was removed. It never looked very good anyway.

The only palms I've seen at the Botanical Garden that still survive outside are:

W. robusta, W. filifera, L. chinensis, N. ritchiana, A. wrightii, R. hystrix, R. excelsa, C. humilis, S. repens, P. species, S. minor, and S. mexicana. If anyone else knows of more I'd love to see them! 

 

[Arecaceus]

Wow! I've never seen such tall B. armatas in real life! What do you reckon,  how old are they? A 100 years? They must be at least 80+ right?

[Axel Amsterdam]

8 hours ago, ChrisA said:

The large Brahea armata at the SA Botanical Garden is no longer.  It perished after Palmeggedon 2021. Here is a view over the palm area from Tuesday of this week.

 

In fact, there were some up on the upper level where the Robusta and Filifera are planted, and even though one recovered from the 2021 Freeze it was removed. It never looked very good anyway.

The only palms I've seen at the Botanical Garden that still survive outside are:

W. robusta, W. filifera, L. chinensis, N. ritchiana, A. wrightii, R. hystrix, R. excelsa, C. humilis, S. repens, P. species, S. minor, and S. mexicana. If anyone else knows of more I'd love to see them! 

 

Hi Chris, so a large armata perished and robusta survived the same winter? That’s surprising. Also it seems there is an armata growing at ground level on the left in the picture. Or are these cerifera fronds?

Edited December 9, 2022 by Axel Amsterdam

[ChrisA]

Hi Alex,

Yes, quite of the few robusta also perished in the cold. I don't think their Brahea were very well taken care of.  They lost over half of their large Chamaerops humilis that lined the walkway that enters the palm alcove. There are other Mexican Blue Palms in San Antonio which survived the winter without issue. We had ice and snow which accompanied the awful weather.  The blueish fronds you are seeing are all Nannorrhops ritchiana. They are the same as the ones on the right side of the pond.

[NBTX11]

23 hours ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

Hi Chris, so a large armata perished and robusta survived the same winter? That’s surprising. Also it seems there is an armata growing at ground level on the left in the picture. Or are these cerifera fronds?

It's a numbers game.  There were thousands of Robusta in San Antonio and much, much less Armata planted (by far).  A lot of Robusta were killed, but since so many were planted, some survived.  

[Axel Amsterdam]

Yes agreed, in large sample sizes there will be outliers and armata’s are relatively scarce in cultivation, not only in SA but i believe around the world. They seem to be on par with filifera in terms of hardiness so still somewhat surprising to see it perished. Perhaps the slower growing rate overall means slower recovery compared to other palms.

Edit: it seems it was already declining in the years before, so maybe in a weakened state.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Axel Amsterdam

[Fusca]

6 hours ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

Edit: it seems it was already declining in the years before, so maybe in a weakened state.

Exactly.  I don't think it was placed very strategically.  In the 5 years that I lived in San Antonio that armata at the botanical garden never looked very good and didn't produce seeds.  It flowered a couple of times but didn't look happy.

[Harry’s Palms]

I've never seen tall B. Armata's around here in Southern California , maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I've had one in the ground on a South facing slope for about 20 years and it is barely 3' tall. It is very healthy but oh so slow growing. The B. Edulis passed it up years ago as did the Sabal Palmetto . The Livistona are keeping up with it though.

[bruce Steele]

 Southern Cal. The tallest Brahea Armata I have seen is on campus Cal poly SLO near the Jubaea Chilensis, there is one in the sunken gardens Santa Barbara courthouse( also beside a Jubaea )and at Vega winery Buellton, as well as one on private property viewable from the 101 in Paso Robles, near Vineyard exit . Paso gets very cold ( into the teens ) and not many tall palms survive there except filifera . Brahea Armata make very hard seeds that the squirrels don’t seem to like so collecting seeds is easy. You can’t miss a Brahea Armata  when it is bloom, nothing like it. Seeds are relatively easy to sprout. I have several strap leaf Brahea Armata from last years efforts. 
 If you want to plant palms in 8b-9a and never worry about freezes put in Jubaea and Brahea, in a hundred years they will be spectacular. If you are in a hurry plant Filifera. 

[Matt N- Dallas]

On 12/9/2022 at 12:57 AM, Axel Amsterdam said:

Hi Chris, so a large armata perished and robusta survived the same winter? That’s surprising. Also it seems there is an armata growing at ground level on the left in the picture. Or are these cerifera fronds?

It’s difficult to imagine the b. armata at the SABOT died from cold.  I had b. armatas in Dallas & San Marcos that survived palmageddon.  

[richtrav]

These are the B. armata at the SABG in May of 2021. They didn’t look dead dead but certainly did not like the freeze.

[richtrav]

On 12/9/2022 at 9:47 AM, ChrisA said:

Hi Alex,

Yes, quite of the few robusta also perished in the cold. I don't think their Brahea were very well taken care of.  They lost over half of their large Chamaerops humilis that lined the walkway that enters the palm alcove. There are other Mexican Blue Palms in San Antonio which survived the winter without issue. We had ice and snow which accompanied the awful weather.  The blueish fronds you are seeing are all Nannorrhops ritchiana. They are the same as the ones on the right side of the pond.

The Nannorrhops is on the north side of the outdoor courtyard. The ones on the south side are Serenoa repens and Brahea decumbens (or decumbens hybrid)

 

 

[Axel Amsterdam]

Are the decumbens the nearly undamaged ones?

[richtrav]

11 hours ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

Are the decumbens the nearly undamaged ones?

Yes