Hey!

A while back, I purchased some Cuban Royal Palm seeds (Roystonea Regia), and, like yours, every single one of them floated.

I tried to research this, but there wasn't very much information. I did find a couple of gardenweb posts including growers that also questioned the floating.

So, while I do not directly know that they float, I will go ahead and say that floating has nothing to do with their viability.

Good luck with those seeds!!

~palmsandsnow

Hi

Funny that I have grown many of these from seed that I collected but never soaked them so have no idea if they float I usually just stuck them in a pot and waited can't remember the germination rate but a couple of them are over 30 feet now so I guess it worked ?? lol gary

Some palm seeds do float. It's how they move from one place to another other via water. They are also very tolerant of salt water, because they can float around forever in the ocean waiting to be washed up on shore to germinate.

http://www.virtualherbarium.org/horticulture/palmseed.html

"Some growers advocate using a seed float test. The seeds are placed in
water and those that float are discarded as non-viable. However, some
palm seeds naturally float because they are dispersed in nature by
water. Furthermore, some growers have found that if the floating seeds
are planted, a sizable number will germinate. There are several
recognized ways to quickly test seed viability on a random sample of the
entire lot:" UF/IFAS Palm Seed Germination