Chamaedorea Species, Hardy Bamboo Palm

Though I am a long way from regarding myself as competent in germinating palm seeds, I have found the seeds of Chamaedorea microspadix al...Read Moremost absurdly easy to grow--whether nurtured, neglected, or ignored, they manage to sprout. The adult plants are surprisingly cold hardy, but have the drawback of often being exceptionally spindly: a long thin stem topped by a small tuft of dull green leaflets. The leaflets lack the droopy grace and deep green of C. radicalis and cataractarum, or the filigree fineness of plumosa or glaucifolia, or even the heft of oblongata. But they are tough, and easy to grow. Too bad that it takes a substantial clump of microspadix to look impressive; individual specimens look insignificant, if not worse.

This is a shade loving palm - exposure to direct sun should be kept to a minimum to avoid severe leaf burns. Old leaves tend to lose rig...Read Moreor within a year or so and fall off - replaced by new growth - as a result, an adult plant will have 4 - 5 leaves near the top at any point in time. Male and female plants needed to produce seeds; it also reproduces itself vigorously thru hard suckers (offshoots), which are of the same-sex as the reproducing plant and difficult to separate. Here in SoCal, this palm flowers year-round: male flowers are of a pale-yellow color and densely packed, while female flowers are yellow-er and more sparsely packed. Once pollinated, green fruit forms and slowly turns red over time. Suitable for potted culture but probably best grown outdoors due to its falling leaves and flowers and, in the case of male plants, year-round release of pollin. All in all, a very handsome, albeit busy (there's always something going on - leaves coming & going, flowers coming & going, fruit, suckers...) palm tree.

THis is one of the more common Chamaedoreas grown in the southern US. It is one of the few that tolerate full sun, though there is a lim...Read Moreit to the heat and dryness tolerance. It is also one of the few Chamaedoreas that does not need a male and female plant to set fertile seed (this plant is not really monoecious but somehow larger suckering plants seem able to form ripe seed... maybe sex changes?). The seed is strikingly orange and makes for an nice ornamental look. Seed tends to set year round, though probably more in the warmer months. It is a suckering palm and can be divided as well as propogated from seed. It is fairly cold hardy for a Chameadorea tolerating frosts down to 22F briefly. Snails LOVE this palm. Indoors, spidermites LOVE this palm.