Dictyosperma Species, Hurricane Palm, Princess Palm, Red Palm

Uncommon in Southwest Florida and I'm not exactly sure why. Seems like South Florida just plants a more diverse variety of palms.
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There are 2 specimens in front of the Naples Daily News building on immokalee road.

This palm is really great and three subspecies exist. They are sold as red, white and yellow. For some reason the red is highly sought af...Read Moreter. I planted 2 reds about 8 years ago. Both where planted about 20' apart. Just 1 year after planting the north tree was wrung at the bud by Tropical Storm Irene. I thought I had lost the tree when I pulled the heart out of the center some 3 months after. Instead a new bud grew to the side of the damaged bud. Until recently you could still see the offset in the trunk of the one tree. To be honest, I have done this on several different palm with a 85% success rate. I guess that allowing the air to enter the bud area of the palm helps kill the fungus of bud rot. Truly nothing to lose since the palm will die any way. As stated earlier they both started to bloom at about 6 years old, with only 3' clean trunk. They have a new inflorescences about every month. The dimensions of each tree are 4' base to crown shaft, 5' crown shaft to bud. Top frond is about 14' above the ground. I kept the trees moist when planted but not after. Currently I back fill all my palm trees with rocks soil and mulch at least once a year, with the objective of keeping the roots covered, since palms grow out of the ground. I never use a weed eater around any of my palms. All my trees stayed upright during Katrina and Wilma with no damage. The only disadvantage of this palm is Lethal Yellowing. I was informed by one of the botanist from Fairchild Gardens that research is showing that if the trees are slightly stressed that the beetle caring LY will just pass them by for juicier trees. I have also been told that Jamaicans place cheap bar soap in the trees to give them a bad taste. In case your wondering the soap is dispensed when rain or overhead watering melts the bar and runs down the trunk.

This specimen is from Mauritius mainly but also can be found in Reunion island.Very resistant to hard condition like cyclone (bear well i...Read Moret's name ) . Cultivated here very widely for it's heart for salad and also for ornamental purpose.Slowly being replaced now by other exotic palms here, due to it's commoness. The very young seedlings are very decorative also , it has light green leave with parralled red margine ( a bit like H. Lagenicaulis leave when young).It takes about 4-6 years for a plant to be harvested for it's heart as salad . For that purpose the finished product "the heart " is highly priced. Yes it is also considered as red yellow and white ( as mentioned by Tijer above) The red one is D-album from Mauritius also Reunion , the yellow one is from Rodrigues and the white one (also called dwarf Dictyosperma) is from Round island ). The red form has redish margin - vein on dark green leaves. Sometimes the young- newly opened leaves can be as red as Chambeyronia macrocarpa. Even the opened bract shows new redish flower stalk.

Very easy grower Zone 10b South Florida.