20 Year Old Syagrus coronata Hybrid...But Crossed With What???

[Bigfish]

I picked a few seeds off the ground underneath a Syagrus coronata at Leu Gardens in Orlando, FL sometime in the very early 2000s when my folks lived in Oviedo, FL.  A couple of them germinated, and I planted one in my parent's yard and gave one to a friend in Winter Park nearby.  I knew it was still alive and doing well, because she is still a friend and we communicate a few times per year, but I had never been back to see it since it was very small.  Well...she sent me some pictures and asked if I wanted seeds, ans I said YES!  I couldn't believe how large and vigorous this Syagrus coronata was!  So I cleaned the seeds that she brought up to me, and sold them on this site.  A few weeks later, I went down there to see it in person and collect an inflorescence for pollen (I was going to try and cross it with a neat Butia in Gainesville with a spiraling pattern on the leaf bases also).  To my horror a few days later, after letting the flowers dry out after heating them, not a single one of them had any pollen.  Then, a buyer of the seeds messaged me and said that the seeds had no embryo, and not even any endosperm.  Yikes.  So it turns out that this palm is actually a hybrid, and a sterile one at that.  But with what, exactly?  Possibilities include x costae, romanzoffiana and Butiagrus, which were nearby at Leu at the time.  It hasn't ever received any appreciable cold damage, and obviously survived 2010 (I don't know what kind of damage it had during that event, and the owner can't remember either).  It's really quite a massive and beautiful palm.  The inflorescence weighed a good 60 pounds freshly cut.  

[awkonradi]

Great looking palm.  Thanks for sharing.  To my eye, it looks like there is S. romanzoffiana in it.  I don't see any Butia.  I look forward to opinions from those who are wiser.

Edited May 16, 2023 by awkonradi

[Eric in Orlando]

That trunk sure looks like a X Butyagrus; The S. coronata was growing right next to a Mule. Both have since perished from ganoderma.

That is a superb palm!

[Bigfish]

3 hours ago, Eric in Orlando said:

That trunk sure looks like a X Butyagrus; The S. coronata was growing right next to a Mule. Both have since perished from ganoderma.

That is a superb palm!

It’s very well-grown and cared for also.  My friend feeds it, irrigates, etc.  A darn shame that it can’t be reproduced!  That would be quite the hybrid…Syagrus coronata x Butiagrus.  One of my Butiagrus is so sterile, it doesn’t even bother opening up the male flowers before dropping them, lol!  🤣. But I have read that Butiagrus pollen is viable, so it’s possible.  The leaves are awfully plumose though.  

[swolf]

Interesting puzzle about this lovely palm!  While the look of the palm (plumose leaves etc.) makes me think of a Queen, a mule is itself part Queen and in F2 generation those genes can loudly reassert themselves.  The following description of Coronata x Romanzoffiana would likewise seem to argue against a pure Syagrus hybrid:

“This natural hybrid occurs in Bahia, Brazil, where the ranges of Syagrus coronata and S. romanzoffiana overlap. Its leaves arranged in five, distinct, vertically spiraling rows and trunk leaf scars are similar to those of S. coronata, and it has the appearance of a very robust form of this species. Leaves, peduncular bracts and fruits are larger than those of S. coronata, while seeds are not as deeply ruminate as those of S. romanzoffiana.“

https://palms.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/vol55n3p141-154.pdf

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

Thanks for the read @swolf

T J 

[hbernstein]

Now THAT'S a Syagrus x !

[Scott W]

Stunning palm, thanks for sharing!

[Bigfish]

On 5/16/2023 at 10:23 PM, swolf said:

Interesting puzzle about this lovely palm!  While the look of the palm (plumose leaves etc.) makes me think of a Queen, a mule is itself part Queen and in F2 generation those genes can loudly reassert themselves.  The following description of Coronata x Romanzoffiana would likewise seem to argue against a pure Syagrus hybrid:

“This natural hybrid occurs in Bahia, Brazil, where the ranges of Syagrus coronata and S. romanzoffiana overlap. Its leaves arranged in five, distinct, vertically spiraling rows and trunk leaf scars are similar to those of S. coronata, and it has the appearance of a very robust form of this species. Leaves, peduncular bracts and fruits are larger than those of S. coronata, while seeds are not as deeply ruminate as those of S. romanzoffiana.“

https://palms.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/vol55n3p141-154.pdf

Thanks for the link!  Good read.  Do you know if coronata x romanzoffiana is a fertile or sterile hybrid?  That would help.

 

[swolf]

3 hours ago, Bigfish said:

Thanks for the link!  Good read.  Do you know if coronata x romanzoffiana is a fertile or sterile hybrid?  That would help.

 

Good question.  That 2011 Palms article failed to comment on fertility or lack of.  To my knowledge, all other intra-Syagrus family hybrids of Coronata are fertile, but this combo is less common.   A more recent Palms article about Syagrus hybrids, with relevant pics!

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kelen-Soares/publication/277874967_Four_new_natural_hybrid_of_Syagrus_from_Brazil/links/5575a3b408ae7521586ad67c/Four-new-natural-hybrid-of-Syagrus-from-Brazil.pdf

[ruskinPalms]

Wow! This is an amazing palm! I don’t know much about mule palms but I think I have heard lots of times they are sterile. And…if one of these seeds did prove to be viable, I’d bet there would all kinds of chances the resulting phenotype would be quite variable from this parent palm. Just a guess though. I’m definitely not a geneticist. 

[Bigfish]

Well, I was a little bit bored tonight, so I grabbed the bag with the rest of the seeds from this palm, and decided to cut a few more open.  The last time I tried this, I accidentally sliced into my finger and ended up with a few stitches in the ER that night.  So…being extra careful with the digits, I dug in.  After a couple more solid seeds, I sliced into a larger seed that had endosperm.  A bit of a surprise, I decided to go get the vice grips and a hammer.  After hammering the remaining few seeds (I think there was around 20 seeds total), I found three with endosperm.  One of them felt a little mushy, so I sacrificed it to look for an embryo.  There was one!  I have planted the remaining 2 just in case.  @Reyes Vargas, @nduba, @MobileBayGarden, @IHB1979, and whoever else I am missing…if you haven’t thrown out those seeds yet, you might want to get the vice and hammer out!

 

[MobileBayGarden]

Well dang it! I threw mine in the compost pile. Maybe I’ll get a surprise this year. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Do you typically break open the seed to get germination? Sorry to hear about your accident.

[Bigfish]

17 minutes ago, MobileBayGarden said:

Well dang it! I threw mine in the compost pile. Maybe I’ll get a surprise this year. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Do you typically break open the seed to get germination? Sorry to hear about your accident.

Thanks…I wasn’t being very careful and too hurried.  So dumb.  But no biggie, really, just a flesh wound.  
 

I don’t typically break open Syagrus, no.  I was just curious and bored, and I thought if there was a chance that one or more seeds actually had an embryo that I would like to grow it!

[MobileBayGarden]

That’s great to hear, I’m going to dig through the compost pile this weekend, and see if I can find any of them. What is the best method to open them up without damaging the embryo if it exist?

[DoomsDave]

Just gorgeous what ever it is!

[Reyes Vargas]

Unfortunately I threw mine in the trash and are in a landfill somewhere.

[Bigfish]

4 hours ago, MobileBayGarden said:

That’s great to hear, I’m going to dig through the compost pile this weekend, and see if I can find any of them. What is the best method to open them up without damaging the embryo if it exist?

Let them dry out a lot, hold the seed with channel locks, and tap lightly with a hammer until you hear the crack.

[Bigfish]

41 minutes ago, Reyes Vargas said:

Unfortunately I threw mine in the trash and are in a landfill somewhere.

Ah, that sucks.  Maybe I can get a few to sprout in the future, and I’ll save one for you.

[edbrown_III]

my Butia crossed with Syagrus  coronata --- photos taken over the last 20 years 

 

[Bigfish]

17 hours ago, edbrown_III said:

my Butia crossed with Syagrus  coronata --- photos taken over the last 20 years 

 

Hi, Ed!  Nice palm!  I see it doesn’t have the spiraling leaf base trait that coronata does.  I found a Butia at UF that I have permission to try a hybrid with, and I was going to use pollen from this palm that is the topic of the thread, but it has almost zero pollen.  I would love to get some coronata pollen to try it with, and see if we can’t get a Butyagrus with spiraling leaf bases!

[MobileBayGarden]

That would be so cool if it held that trait! Would Syagrus romanzoffiana not be the best cross for maximum cold tolerance?

[edbrown_III]

yeah thats what I was going for --- most of these Syagrus traits

crosses bleed out when mixed with Butia 

[Bigfish]

1 hour ago, MobileBayGarden said:

That would be so cool if it held that trait! Would Syagrus romanzoffiana not be the best cross for maximum cold tolerance?

Yes, but I want the spiral leaf bases!  😝
To Hell with cold tolerance!

[MobileBayGarden]

13 hours ago, Bigfish said:

Yes, but I want the spiral leaf bases!  😝
To Hell with cold tolerance!

Lmao, I’m sure it would still be pretty tolerant with the Butia genes mixed in there. I can’t wait to see if it works out for you! I call dibs on a few seeds.😉 lol