Todate, this is by far, one of the more difficult names to pronounce, righty? Also known as the Paurotis Palm and the Silver Saw Palm, this is indeed, an attractive landscape palm where in its native Florida State, mounds of these palms could be seen dotting the southern everglades landscape.
The first attraction for me was its fine and evenly split fan leaves. The leaves are palmate, deeply divided and appears bluish green on the underside. They are held on long thin petioles with small orangy spines.
Slender brown trunks formed by the base of the petioles which are well wrapped by a coarse brown fibre almost like sack cloth would make it very tolerant of cold weather. Apparently, transplanting is not easy with this species. However, this clump surviving in tropical Malaysia seems acclimatised and well adapted!
The refined bunch of leaves will make an interesting accent in any sunny outdoors location provided the soil is wet and sandy or even swampy.
Here I am, going overboard with pictures of the attractive palm leaves.
Also spotted an inflorescence with pea sized fruits. As the palm was quite away from the walk path, it was difficult to get any closer shots without trampling closely knitted varieties of the surrounding plants. Well, I shouldn't really complain as I need not have to travel far to meet this Central American native. :-)
I know I'm late to comment but I just thought that I would elaborate on its hardiness. Here in North Florida it got down to 20 degrees for a few nights, damaging the fronds but that was the extent of the damage! These are among my favorite palms and they look great when allowed to form a canopy.
ReplyDeleteHi Rainforest Gardener!
ReplyDeleteJust saw your informative comment. That's great! a tough one indeed and the fibre wrap must have insulated against the cold while moderating the heat in equatorial climes!!
Sorry for the late response... good weekend!