Pics from my trip to Cuba

I just got back from a 2-week vacation to Cuba (actually I stayed mostly in Havana) and I thought you'd like to see some of the palm pics I took over there...

Obviously, palm trees of all kinds are literally abudant in gardens, city streets, parcs, public places and of course the countryside and the general cuban landscape. In Havana, you'll see mostly Cuban Royals (of course!), coconuts, LOTS of adonidias, ptychospermas, arecas (dypsis lutescens), various Syagrus species, many phoenix roebellenii, licualas, copernicias, plus a variety of sabals and thrinax. Most of the cuban house gardens are very attractively planted, mainly with smaller palms (adonidias and arecas are the most common species I saw), cycads, pandanus, dracaenas, and occasionally coconuts, if there's enough space. Public and city places are planted with literally thousands of Cuban Royals and coconuts, as well as other big and robust palms. Particularly beautiful are the patios of the great colonial mansions, that always display great looking palms of all sizes and other tropical plants.

Here are some of the palms that I had the opportunity to take pictures of.

In this pic, shot in the hotel I was stayin in, you can see a very nice planting of coconuts and date palms, an unusual but beautiful combination.

This message was edited Aug 26, 2008 7:56 PM

In the hotel's garden, another pair of nice palms. Sabals?

Oh, I forgot! Since I'm not a palm expert by any means, there are lots of palms that I couldn't identify. Please contribute your knowledge if you wish!

Hyophorbe?

A pair of Syagrus of some kind (I think)...

Another Syagrus, a really beautiful one. Is this a common queen palm?

Thrinax???

In the closed patio of another hotel, some really nice ptychospermas (?)

Big fat licualas, in the same hotel.

A beautiful old little garden, with some nice p. roebellenii...

A couple of really HUGE royals...

A row of royals dominating the landscape.

The same row from beneath.

And some more royals...After all it's Cuba's national tree!

A huge sago with multiple heads.

The second sago of the same garden.

A very impressive cycad of some kind (feel free to ID it). This one is about 12' tall (I was standing on the top of a stare when I took the pic).

This message was edited Aug 26, 2008 8:37 PM

A strange but interesting planting of royals and washingtonias, in one of Havana's streets.

The patio of a great colonial mansion, densely planted with palms (which species?)

The same patio, from above.

A really tall (about 20' or more) adonidia.

The same adonidia.

Another very tall speciment : a licuala (grandis?), about 15' tall.

Another view of the patio from a different angle.

A row of really big (and great looking) pandanus plants.

A sabal, probably causiarum (right?)

A nice coconut palm, in the garden of my hotel.

Another nice palm planting, in yet another colonial patio. Are these ptychospermas?

A typical cuban countryside landscape, full of royals, bamboos and other trees.

Landscape #2

Landscape #3

Landscape #4

Landscape #5

Landscape #6

Landscape #7

Landscape #8

All the "landscape" pictures were taken from the window of a car running on the road, which means that those landscapes can be seen for miles and miles - at least on the western part of Cuba, where this kind of vegetation is really thick and lush.

Later today or tomorow I'll post some pics from Havana's National Botanical Garden, and I'm pretty sure you're going to like them!

i think your second picture is of Livistona chinensis

thanks for posting all those pics Basilio!

I'm sure most if not all of us on this board have never been to Cuba so it's neat to see pictures of a land that is basically off-limits. I love the Licuala grandis photos, as that is one of my favorites that we can't grow here in So Cal.

Keep them coming!

Thanks FoF! Actually these are all the "general" palm pictures that I took (as I said, I'll post tomorrow the ones from the Botanical Garden). I'm pretty sure that a palm expert (Palmbob comes to mind) would have a ball in Cuba, among other things because he could identify and photograph many palm species that I'm sure I missed, simply because I couldn't notice much difference among so many palms of all kinds.

The good thing is that for us Europeans, Cuba is a quite common (although pricey) tourist destination and in fact it's the most usual tropical vacation place, along with Thailand. I've been in Cuba 5 times and I always love to go back, it's a fantastic country with great natural beauty and a particularly rich culture.

did they like, ban americans from going there or something??

You can go there from canada or mexico, just can't fly directly from the USA. Technically, your not supposed to go there but lots of people do.