Unknown palm acquisition

11 years ago

A guy in my neighborhood recently moved and left many things laying around in his yard. I was called and told that he had "left many plants and pots and other interesting stuff", so I went over to look around. I didn't find much as most of what he had left was broken or dead, but I did find a Bird of Paradise that I'm going to try to save, a clump of African Iris that was left sitting without a pot and this palm.

I am going to remove the smaller side palms and possibly save them, but often I find their roots so entwined that it is hard to separate them. But I would like to know what kind of palm this likely is. I'm thinking European Fan or Windmill, but I really don't know. Hopefully its not a Washingtonia, there are already way too many of those in my area.

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Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
Original Author

11 years ago

After the intial information about suckering, I checked and they are indeed suckers, not extra plants. There was one dead and rotted sucker and it peeled from the mother with no signs of ever having roots.

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Comments (11)

User
11 years ago
Euro fan. I wouldn't try to break it upjust yet. Id weed it, pot it on and get it growing well before I attempted to divide it.

Personally, I would just leave it as is.
User
11 years ago
Chamaerops humilis (Euro fan). Individual specimens can look really different, some sucker a lot, some not so much. Notoriously difficult if not impossible to remove suckers successfully.
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jimhardy
11 years ago
If they dont have their own roots they will not live.

I agree Chamaerops humilis
palmbob
11 years ago
plant is a suckerer… removing suckers will give you some dead suckers, but main plant will be OK (though significantly uglier in my opinion).
Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
Original Author
11 years ago
Okay, thanks all. I initially thought it was the "Many palms thrown into a pot" that often happens in big box stores, I was not aware that Euro Fan Palm was a clump forming palm, but very cool that it does. I will leave the suckers on it and see if I can find a pot big enough to pot it up. At the very least I will renew the soil in this one and try to set the palm back down. I'm not sure if it lifted itself from the soil or if the guy that had it prior did a poor job of potting it in the first place, either way I would like to get the base back to a subterranean status.

Thanks again.
User
11 years ago
Hi Michael.

I wouldn't worry about exposed roots. Just mulch it with composted Pine bark after you repot or topdress.
plantsman56
11 years ago
I hate to go against everyone, am I seeing bare petioles on this palm? Maybe it is the pictures, but the leaf blades are also fairly wide. Michael, if those are smooth petioles, you have a windmill palm. Chamaerops have many decent sized spines all up and down the petiole.
jimhardy
11 years ago
Ligules and old flower bases dont look right for a Windmill palm
also Trachys are not clumping palms,I do see little spines
on the petioles but not many...possible its Trithrinax of
some sort but I still think Chammy is the best bet.
Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
They're not 'decent sized' yet, but there are spines. And flowers developing. And possibly scale to deal with...

I'm going to take the ID of Euro Fan palm and run with it. And probably trip and poke my eye out.
palmbob
11 years ago
flowers also typical of Chamaerops