pygmy date palm?

Hi all,
I don't know much about palm trees...But when searching DG, I think I ID'ed this as a Pygmy Date Palm...This is growing outside of my home office window...I have 2 questions...

1- Is this in fact a Pygmy Date?
2 - What to do with these seeds that are forming? Should I pull them off and do anything with them? If I let them fall by themselves, will they try to grow new ones in my flowerbed?

Sorry about the silly questions...I'm new to this and I figured this forum would know best...

Thanks!
-abl

yes

Yes to what part?

Yes, it is a pygmy date palm. Just leave the seeds alone. They shouldn't germinate and become more palms.

Those are flowers... they may eventually become fruit. But unless fertilized by another palm tree will never turn into seeds. If they do, will probably end up as some hybrid... however, unless you have a lot of other Phoenix palms in the vicinity, fertile seed will be an unlikely occurence.

Great, thanks guys!
I will keep watching to see what the seeds become...

-abl

I dont like to disagree, but the picture is of the seeds. The seeds and the flowers on the pygmy date palm come on seperate single palms. So if you have a clump of three palms, two may have flowers and the other may have seeds. The flowers pollen will pollinate the seeds and they will eventually fall and become new palms. This is a picture of the flowers.

wow, very interesting! I'm learning a lot thank you!

so what do the flowers look like then? and if I don't have any flowers pop up, and only these seeds, I don't have to worry about them reproducing then?

I am still going to stick to my original position- those are flowers, not seeds.. .your palm has seeds of a different sex (I think you have a male there) and the flowers on the first photo are of a female.. .but those are certainly NOT seeds.. .they may develop into seeds eventually, though (since seeds develop from the flowers on female plants).

The female palms have the seeds and the males have flowers. the male flowers pollinate the female seeds. The seeds are small at first but when pollinated they grow and develope into viable seeds that can be planted.

The date palms i believe all are of different sexes. Just like the true date and canary island date, the female pygmy dates must be pollinate by pollen from nearby palms. And yes, if there are no other palms present producing flowers then the seeds will not be viable, they will only fall off. I have many pygmy dates in my yard and most of them produce flowers and only a few produce seeds. If you shake the flower stalks, you can see pollen being released.

Otherwise, palms such as the queen palm and the foxtail palm, the flowers and the seeds are produced on the same stalk because the palm is self pollinating. When the stalk first emerges, they are yellow flowers but when they fall, they are replaced by small seeds which eventually become mature and fall from the stalk.

If you search around on the internet, you can see the difference between the seeds and the flowers easily.

Still, all seeds start out as flowers... all palms make flowers. Phoenix palms are dioecious, meaning, as you said, there are male and female plants. And the female floral parts will develop into seeds if fertilized. But at the time they originate from the flower spathes (note the name: 'flower' spathes) they are considered flowers. They have miniature flower parts, that need to be fertilized by pollen from the male flower parts. They don't start out as seeds.

y'all have lost me now...
:)

Wasn't expecting "Palm Sex 101".

palmbob: could you give a rundown on common palms that are monoecious (combined male/female) and are dioecious (seperate male/female)?

What do you consider common palms? Some examples of monoecious palms: Washingtonias, Syagrus, Butias, Jubaeas, Parajubaeas, Arengas, Trithrinax, Thrinax, Coccothrinax, Dypsis- all these palms produce both male and female flowers... some monoecious palms have same sex flowers in the same flower spathe... some produce separate male and female flower spathes (I think Lytocaryums do that)... but none need a second palm to make viable seed (assuming a bee came along or somehow the palm flower parts fertilized each other).

Some dioceious palms include Phoenix, Majestys, Trachycarpus, Chamaedoreas... hmmm ... can't think of any others right off... all cycads are dioecious. All these plants need both male and female separate plants to make any viable seeds. You can't grow another Trachycarpus from a single palm... won't make any viable seed (sometimes the female flowers will still develop sterile seed in some palms, but those seeds are almost always a lot smaller, and often fall off the inflorescence (flower and flower stalk) before long. That is the reason so many Phoenix hybrids exist in cultivation now... people grow a lot of phoenix palms, but a lot of different species! So the chances of a P roebellenii, for example, being pollinated by another roebellenii depend a lot upon what other Phoenix are nearby... often you get crosses that sort of look a bit like one kind of Phoenix and sort of like another. That is why there is so much variety in the P canariensis palms that are growing around Los Angeles... many have a little of this or that in them.

Sorry for the confusion... I am NOT a botanist, so if someone with a better understanding wants to chime in, be my guest.

What you are saying explains why Butia hybrids are deliberate and create rare palms, and Phoenix hybrids are random and spontaneous. Eventually any pure species of Phoenix might be hard to come by in an area like SoCal.

My P. rupicola looks nothing like the young ones I've seen in photos. I'm thinking it is hybridized with P. robelini. If it makes the thing coldhardier and faster-growing, I'll take it.

so terry, if you've got a P. rupicola that has hybridized with a roebelini, wouldn't that make it a smaller version of the rupicola, since the pygmies are a lot smaller tree?

problem with hybrids, purposeful or random, is there still is genetic variation, so it is not that easy to predict what the offspring will look like. I had 3 Butia x Syagrus schizophylla seedlings at one time, and all looked completely different from each other- all off the same inflorescence. So some hybrids of P rupicola with roebelleniis may look like a rupicalo, or may looks like a roebellenii, or something in between, or something very different. Sort of fun... but if you are interested in preserving a true species, can be a headache.

Sorry about the double-post there. Yes, it would be smaller, but from what I've heard rupicolas are real slow. That "grow this one for your grandkids" line doesn't do much for me.

A single-trunked hybrid between rupicola and reclinata would be cool... somehow that clumping gene strikes me as dominant, but who knows.

I have stated this many times here. Every time someone post "what is this Phoenix species, mine looks different" I reply about this. It seems not many are concerned about it. Growers still have groves of all the different species all together. So when they seed, no one knows what it 100% is. Reclinatas are the easiest to spot and in my opinion the hardest to find without any level of hybridization. Yu need to pull some OLD specimens to find true Recs in most cases.

Also, I have seen Roebellenii's crossed with either Recs or some other date palm. They are neat plants. Twice the size of a normal Roebellenii, but the fronds are more stiff and leaflets not as fine.

I've seen some canariensis/reclinatas crosses locally, and that is NOT one I want in my yard. I think that might be one growing on the curb at TipTop Meat Market* in Carlsbad.

*FoF: "The All-Meat Environment"

ah yes, the All-Meat Environment! They have a great German deli, though. The best on the west coast, and that coming from a real German. I'll have to take a look at their reclinata... didn't realize that...

Ahem, not to get off the topic... WebInt, now you have me wondering if my rec is a true rec now... can you tell from this pic?

I rememeber that pic from before. It is too hard to tell. Once the fronds open, you can get a better idea. I am still waiting for your Canaries to flower to see what they are. :)

Does anyone like the Phoenix roebelinii var. reasoneri? I'd like to find a single trunk reclinata?