Oddities

Saw these 3 palms all within a mile of each other on the same rural road.

#1 Beheaded

Seems odd that they didn't cut down the whole thing....

oops

This message was edited Jul 9, 2007 4:21 PM

#2 growing out of ?? a well? pressure relief pipe?

Some sort of concrete pipes sticking out of the ground along a farm

#3a That Musta Hurt

Mangled looking palm. Sorry about the poor pic quality. I bought an expensive 7.2 megapixel camera that can't take stinkin clear pics even though the little rectangles in the view screen say it's focused....

oops again, forgot to add image

#3b blurry close up

I can revisit and try to take clearer pics if anyone is interested

What brand camera did you buy? If it's anywhere near expensive then you must be using some incorrect settings. Even cheapies these days take great pics.

Those are some weird palms. Sure you didn't enter The Twilight Zone? I've seen some headless palms before, they look really odd.

That last one looks like someone chopped off the top of a Phoenix something and it's starting to grow back? Absolutely strange!

I'll try to take some pix of the headless P. canariensis that's near me. It was pineappled (trimmed) then the head fell off. Nice-looking pineapple though. Prolly used unclean tools or maybe trimmed it wrong. osideterry might know the one. It's at the NW corner of Hwy 76 and Rancho del Oro Rd.

Canon Powershot A620...pics taken with Auto setting

well my Canon powershot A520 takes pictures crystal clear and so should yours. Did you have the little "flower" icon showing when you took the pics? That is for close up. They'll make a distant shot look out of focus. But you have to physically push the flower icon button for that icon to appear, it is not a default setting.

Here's a pygmy in my neighborhood...

Yep, one crown is healthy and the other is crap. Here is a closeup.

that hurts my eyes.

That first one, venturan, looks like lightning hit it and knocked the top off and fried the rest.

I agree with FOF... the others just look weird. Would that be caused by some kind of damage?

pygmy afro

Here are what I believe to be Cardboard palm flowers. When was the last time you saw some of those?
Either that or some other plant was flowering right next to it...

I dunno if this qualifies as an "oddity," but I've never seen a Sago seed pod like this before. Sure is an oddity to me...

almost looks like an ear of corn! Salt and butter anyone?

I took these pics at Woodland Nursery in Vista. The owners are very nice and have a lot of tropicals and palms, focusing on tri Kings. That Sago and this Kentia were blooming up front on their lot. I've never seen a Howea bloom, pretty interesting flowers.

Lots of seeds on this Howea.

One more of the Howea flowers.

Not really an oddity but still an interesting shot of their King seedlings. Acres of Kings on at this nursery, almost all multies. Most tri-Kings but many were multiple trunking ones in 48" boxes.

FOF, here you go (Huntington Library)

One of my Dypsis lutescens - it could explain what's happening on those other palms with curly tops. On this one, the new growth was trapped in the old leaf base. The stalk can't get through and is corkscrewing. It appears another leaf is growing out the other end.

FOF, those sago palm cones that are long, are simply male cones that produce pollen. the female ones are rounder and fatter, im guessing that is what you are used to. also, that pic of the"cardboard palm flowers" is an albizia julibrissin in bloom, neither a palm or cycad, it is a deciduous, small tree, related to the pea.

Right. Cycads don't have flowers anyway. Only cones.

FOF that's what a male sago looks like. Sorry but at the right time of year I can take a hundred pictures like yours.

guess it's not an oddity then. Just your everyday Sago pollen cone. a dime a dozen oh well, it was an oddity to me anyways. I guess one man's oddity is another man's commonality.

The females have a rounder wider cone. Like half a basketball right in the center.

I have a female, that's why I was surprised to see that pollen cone. I'd never seen such a sight. I think Sago's have some really interesting characteristics, both male and femal. This shot was taken earlier this year in April. By now it has a whole new crown of fronds that just opened. I tend to overlook it since it hasn't grown very much but it's beautiful in it's own right.

I am creating an oddity just to see what happens. I have a Washingtonia seedling in my yard that I put through a rock with a hole in it. I don't plan on keeping the seedling forever. I wonder if it will break the rock or do something odd to the palm. Some might say that is twisted and that I shouldn't mess with nature.

....and others, like me, say it's perfectly fine to experiment like that! i do it all the time

Whether you plant it through a hole in a rock or a hole in the ground, you are "messing with nature." Those people are silly and I say have fun :-) But please let us know what happens.

yeah, please! or else we'll have to do it ourselves

so how wide is the hole for this experiment? I'm all for creating your own oddity.

here is an oddity: a palmetto started to grow near a live oak until a hurricane or somethiing tilted it over, and now the palmetto is trapped Under the oak... this was taken in Shipyard Plantation on Hilton Head Island, SC.

looks like the live oak got itself a kick stand! LOL

yeah! it will be cool to see how the palm tree turns out in like 10 yrs!

if it makes it! I don't think I could hold up that much weight for very long LOL

regarding the palm in the rock; the hole could fit a thumb through it. I'll post a pict later if anyone wants to see. Will be more interesting when it outgrows the hole.

About the palm and oak; what if someone carefully cut a hole in the oak so the palm could grow through it, and then sealed up the tree wounds.

well by the looks of it I don't think the oak would survive a hole cut through its heart.
That hole being only the size of the thumb, I would think the palm would crack the rock. Either that or it wouldn't make it. That's not a very big diameter.