Palm Puzzle Contest

FRITO,

You're amazing. You got it. I don't know how you did that. Even down to the 'green' variety. Contact me via PM and give me your address, and we'll work out a way to get you your prize money.

It's obvious I will need to make the next one a little harder. :)

I will post the full photos after more people get a chance to see how little you had to work with.
 
Damn, that's crazy. I had R sapida, but was going to guess Washingtonia on the second. How could you tell it was Bismarkia?

Matt
 
I hear you Matt. You may be the best IDer around, so if you're amazed, I am even more so. He ruined all the fun :D

I even went and checked to see if there was any hidden camera data that may have given some clues, but couldn't find any.

Good job FRITO. I guarantee the next one won't be so easy. :)
 
I had a couple of (wrong) guesses, but when I saw Frito's post, I realized he was probably right and gave up. The flower on the Rhopalostylus was the key, but how he got the Bismarkia is a mystery. I was madly looking at photos of Latania and Sabal to find a match.

Impressive, Frito, do you grow a lot of these specific palms?
 
That is an amazing guess!!!!!! I can actually see both of those palms now that he's I.D.'d them, but I wasn't even close before that. I'm not eligible to win, but I was still trying to play along for the funsies of it. Frito, you're top i.d. dog!!!!!!!!!
 
wow...thanks guys!

The inflorescen gave away the R. sapida, that pink color sticks out, never seen one of those palms in person though, just photos you socalians post!

I thought Livistonia on the second until the 5 puzzle peices were removed and saw slight recurve and stiff leaflets. When Dean said one was a pinnate and one was a fan and they were relatively common I went down the list of common fans... livistonia, brahea, licula, washy, then I was like what other fans do I have, then I saw my bizzie and was stumped since it wasnt silver then thought of the green and figured green form had to be it, plus from the boulders I could tell in was Nong nooch and saw the D. decaryi from madagascar and maybe figured they planted the bizzie in the same area? Sabal bermuda was also a second guess but I figured bizzie was more likely to be common and planted with the d decaryi.

well that was my thinking on it, if you post tropical pinnate palms I will have a much harder time...or any dypsis mysteries, haha
 
The amazing thing about the Rhopalostylis is that R. sapida and R. baueri are very similar sometimes and the only thing that separates them can sometimes be the color of the flowers. Pink being R. sapida and white being R. baueri. Nice work for a floridian.
 
isnt R. sapida more common as well? the common factor was used in my deciphering technique.

is that Big one matty that youve posted standing next to before a hybrid of the two, or just some larger robust form of sapida?
 
Never in my wildest dreams did I figure the first guess would be the right one for both. I left the R. sapida flowers cuz I thought it may mislead. And I thought having the green form of Bismarkia would also mislead.

I think Frito must work for the Detective Office.

I didn't want to make it too hard because I didn't want to discourage 'non-experts.' But it looks like the next one will have to be.

If anyone would like to do another just for fun, let me know. It may give me more to go on for the next $50.

I'll post the complete pics here soon for these two.
 
isnt R. sapida more common as well? the common factor was used in my deciphering technique.

is that Big one matty that youve posted standing next to before a hybrid of the two, or just some larger robust form of sapida?

That one is R. baueri. It's in full, all day sun and looks more compact like a sapida. The offspring are obviously R. baueri. Maybe it is a hybrid. We don't no for sure, except the flowers are white which indicates baueri. It's probably the nicest, fattests baueri I've ever seen though.
 
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