Attalea Cohune seeds question

[idontknowhatnametuse]

I'm in Puerto Vallarta and Attalea Cohune is native here. I got 2 seeds for now. One looks quite old and the other one looks newer.

Which one is most likely to sprout?

Is the green one unripe?

Edited July 1, 2023 by idontknowhatnametuse

[Fusca]

29 minutes ago, idontknowhatnametuse said:

I'm in Puerto Vallarta and Attalea Cohune is native here. I got 2 seeds for now. One looks quite old and the other one looks newer.

Which one is most likely to sprout?

Is the green one unripe?

I would think that the older one on the left would be more likely to germinate.  I have only been able to germinate one but it looked very similar to yours.  It took a little over a year.  I used the baggie method with bottom heat of 95°F.  The other one might still germinate - definitely won't hurt to try. 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Fusca

[mnorell]

Alex, I don't know about which one is more likely to sprout (I would suspect the green one is immature), but note that the "Attalea cohune" in Puerto Vallarta is a very different animal from the Attalea cohune that exists further down in the Central America and in Yucatan. Henderson lumped Orbignya guacuyule into Attalea cohune because he doesn't think the differences in the flowers warrant a different species. However Scott Zona (@Scott Zona), a venerated expert on palms of the Americas, disagrees and feels that the palm in Jalisco is properly Attalea guacuyule. And I personally must wholeheartedly agree with Scott Zona. The two palms are indeed very closely related genetically and phylogenetic analysis has confirmed this. However, this palm is much smaller than Attalea cohune, and has a more lax crown with leaves hanging down, very much with the feel of a coconut palm. I am trying to find seed or plants of this species myself but it seems impossible here in the USA. It is presently very difficult to import seed of plants from Mexico. The only plants/seed available seem to be of the more massive Attalea cohune, truly a gigantic palm which has a huge, extraordinarily upright crown of leaves, and which has been more commonly grown in Florida and Hawai'i.

[Fusca]

I collected seeds from this Attalea cohune 'double' in Goiânia, Brasil several years ago but did not get any germination.   The fruits had not yet started dropping so were probably not quite ripe enough.  Fruits varied in size but were huge compared to the seed I germinated.