Parajubaea Species, Cocumbe Palm, Mountain Coconut, Quito Palm

This is an excellent palm for the SF Bay Area since it thrives in our coolish dry climate. It will take some heat as well and I love the ...Read Morefact that they keep growing right through the winter months. They are becoming plentiful with the specialty palm growers.

ONe of the better palms for Southern California, in that it always looks good, is relatively fast, and easy to grow, and very wind tolera...Read Morent. It is about the closest we can get to growing a palm that eventually looks like a coconut (Much smaller seeds, though). This particular species is unknown in the wild and may just be a cultivar of one of the other Parajubaeas, but is the one most encountered in cultivation now. The other species most commonly encountered, P torralyi, is even a faster, better grower, but is much rarer in cultivation.

It does have the annoying tendency to suddenly up and die, though. No one knows why for sure. Also prone to bud rot from overhead watering, though this one usually grows out of it if treated with antifungals and discontinuance of that sort of watering practice.

This is one of the few palms that do much better in a mediteranean climate like So Cal than in Florida or Hawaii where it's just too humid for it. Of the Parajubaeas, this is the worst grower, though (all are good, but this is the least good). The other varieties of P torralyi are rapidly becoming available, and within a few years (maybe by 2007) they will be more commonly grown than this species.