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Palm Trees, Cycads, Bromeliads and other Tropical Plants
Dictyosperma album
Hurricane Palm
Welcome to palm-trees.org. Here you will find pictures, mostly of my palm trees, cycads, bromeliads and other
tropical plants, but also I will include related galleries of interest to palm tree enthusiasts. The related galleries Kew, Eden, Palmetum, etc., contain pictures of many types of palm trees not commonly seen in cultivation and over time I will be adding information for all palm tree types making an extensive resource for education and information gathering purposes.
It is my intention to create a new gallery of palm tree pictures for my own collection each month illustrating the palms' growth
rates and any other changes to my plants throughout the seasons. Most of my palm trees are quite
small at the moment, so over time it will be possible to observe the entire life cycle from
seed or seedling to mature plant. It will also illustrate germination times as well as show
how my palm collection grows or changes over time. The galleries will also contain general
information about each of the palm trees and other tropical plants pictured.
The palms, cycads and tropical plants sections, which have now been added, have a separate
gallery for each plant, which includes more specific information about the actual plants pictured.
This view illustrates how the individual plant changes over time and includes information about palm tree care including any
changes to the plant, be it re-potting, change of environment or changes to feeding and watering regime.
Cyrtostachys renda
Sealing Wax Palm
At the moment and for the foreseeable future, most of my own collection is focused on smaller species of palms. This is partly due to a lack of space, but also due to my wanting to grow tropical plants as pot plants, which can either be easily protected from winter temperatures or used as houseplants. Whilst there are already many palms widely available for use as houseplants, that have been tried and tested for many years, there is an abundance of smaller palm species that are still relatively rare in cultivation and becoming less common in habitat. Whilst I certainly don't condone rogue seed collection of endangered palm species, there are often seeds or plants available through legitimate sources, which may provide the only chance for the ongoing survival for some palms.
In the future, as well as the monthly updates, I intend to build up an extensive online catalogue of palm trees, cycads, bromeliads and tropical plants, including photos, descriptions, habitat information and status, availability and cultural information, which will grow into a useful reference point for anyone interested in growing tropical plants.
Ravenea moorei
Hopefully you will find some of the existing information here useful and be able to learn from my successes
and failures. Any feedback about the website or the plants would be greatly appreciated, so
please feel free to contact me (Corey) with your thoughts or questions. I am always open to suggestions and recommendations and will endeavour to help with any questions people may have.
Any return visitors to the site will have noticed a new (hopefully improved) layout, which I have designed based on feedback from visitors to the site and will hopefully prove to be less awkward at smaller screen resolutions. For those interested in or in the process of designing their own website, I would also be glad to help, if I am able, with any site design difficulties people may have.
Thank you for taking the time to visit The Palm Haven.
I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in palm trees takes the time to visit The International Palm Society and their online forum Palm Talk. I have found the forum, particularly, to be an invaluable resource, with many like minded people, some with many years of palm growing experience and all of whom very willing to share their knowledge.
Palm Trees Of The Month
I thought it might be fun to have a Palm Tree Of The Month section, with a picture and a little information, which may expose people to Palm species that they have not previously encountered. Due to copyright issues, I will only use Palm species of which I already have photo's, but as I intend to increase my collection of Palm photo's over time, this shouldn't prove to be too limiting.
January 2009 Palm Tree Of The Month - Cocos nucifera (Coconut Palm)
Cocos nucifera
Coconut Palm
Cocos nucifera, the Coconut Palm, is unlikely to be new to anyone, it has been used by humans for thousands of years and is the most econocally important of all palm species. Cultivated, not only for it's nut, but for coconut oil, coir products (made from the fibrous husks) and the trunks and leaves are used in local communities for construction and thatching. Having been in cultivation for so long, it's exact origins are unknown, though it's likely to have been Islands of the South Pacific. Selective breeding over such a long period has given rise to various cultivars, which vary in size and appearance. Heights range from 18-30m/60-100' with a soliatary trunk of 300mm/12" diameter with a noticeable basal flare. The trunk is smooth, mid gray to almost white and ringed with the scars of old leaf bases. Trunks are often leaning or contorted, either as the result of reaching for greater exposure to the sun or due to nutitional deficiencies. The full crown carries many light to dark green leaves up to 6m/20' in length. The short, up to 1.2m/4', petioles also vary between cultvars from a yellowish green to a dark golden shade. The petiole colour is usually carried right along the rachis, giving a nice constrast to the green leaflets. The huge fruits that contain the edible nut are 300mm/12" long and ripen from green to a golden yellow. Cocos nucifera is a very strong and robust palm, being tolerant of poor soil, drought and full sun from a relatively early age and very tolerant of wind and salt. It is, however, not tolerant of low temperatures and is unlikely to survive much below 2-3°C/36-37°F for any length of time, although a few have survived slightly lower. It's light requirements also make it a difficult palm to grow indoors. Growth rate is moderate to fast given adequate moisture, nutrition and sun.
This picture was taken during my April 2008 visit to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Florida. Even that far south in Florida, rare cold events can be near the extremes for survivability of the Coconut Palm, but most come through these rare events intact. Fairchild currently list 174 live specimens, including the type species and 16 different cultivars.
Cocos nucifera is widely available, even through mainstream stores, althoguh often more as a curiosity being sold in areas where it clearly has no chance of long term survival. Seeds may be available from Rare Palm Seeds or Ortanique, both of whom offer an international mail order service for many palm species via their online stores.
Site News: 24th April 2008
The "Palms" section of the site has now been replaced with the palm trees database that I have been working on. Whilst the database is still incomplete, it already features many more species that the old palms section. For those still wanting to view the archived pages, there is a link at the bottom of the new page.
Site News: 3rd August 2007
Some visitors to the site may have noticed that the Palms, Cycads and Tropical sections of the site have not had June or July updates yet. There are a few reasons for this, but these areas are the most lengthy, by far, to maintain, but get fairly minimal use by visitors to the site. For the most part there is usually little change to report from month to month for most plants and what information is given is usually apparent from the photo. Rather than spend the time to do this each month, I will add the photos without new information, so that the plants can still be seen by species, rather than the gallery view, but I will also add a journal (I don't care for the term blog) for the entire collection, detailing any noteworthy changes. Hopefully this will free up some time, allowing me to add more information to other species in the related galleries.
I also intend to add the various species from the related galleries to the palms, cycads and tropical sections, which will make it easier to find pictures and information on specific species.
Finally, I have been making some general page layout changes, which make the site more suitable for visitors with high screen resolutions. All of the main index pages are changed and a few galleries, but it will be an ongoing process over the coming months to get everything into the new format. As always, any feedback or suggestions are welcomed.
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