A few pics from the yard.

James_Guam

Member
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19/10/13
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Greetings all!

I just wanted to say hi to everyone and introduce myself. My name is James, and I am a Chamorro from Guam who recently returned home to the island after a few years in the military (~13). During my time "overseas" I'd return to Guam every couple of years to plant more coconut trees, betelnut trees and to make cuttings of my pandanus trees to plant, which the leaves are used for weaving. Generally I've only been planting fruit trees, palm trees that I use the parts for either eating, or for traditional arts. I have about 20 coconut trees and 10 pandanus trees at the moment, all at different stages of growth. Some of the pandanus trees are full size, whereas others are kinda short. I didn't start planting decorative palms until this year, after deciding I should make my yard look a little -nicer-. I think the first thing that made me think about this was seeing bismarki palms planted in people's yards. Very stunning fan palm, and I thought it would make the front yard look pretty neat. So here's just a few pics of the palms that I have, some I sprouted myself, others I acquired from local vendors.

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Licuala grandis palms purchased from a local grower



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Pritchardia pacifica seedling showing first spike, seeds were gathered from trees lining the roads that the government had planted.



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Adonidia merrillii variegated variety purchased from a local garden center.

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Adonidia merrillii variegated variety, leaves



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Pinanga insignis acquired in Palau. The mother plant had a deep purple crownshaft and lots of fruit on it. I was only able to find one that had already sprouted with a small spike showing, which was on September 1st, 2013. The rest of the seeds (I got six) were still in husks but dried out. It's October 22nd and this one has finally gone from little spike to its first set of leaves, which are about half an inch long. The remaining seeds were processed, and all have germinated, one which appears to have two seedlings springing forth. The color of these leaves is pretty interesting, not a plain green like the betelnut palms when they are seedlings, but has a reddish color along the margins, and pleats of the leaves.



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Areca catechu seedling, Guam local red variety. The kernel or nut as it's called on Guam is a bright red color when immature and is generally chewed when it is fully mature. The nut has a fine granular texture and is preferred over the local white variety which doesn't have a fine texture and is less "potent".

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Areca catechu, Guam local red variety, leaf up-close

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Photograph of the local red variety's immature nut, showing the deep red color and small kernel size.



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Areca catechu, Palau white variety. The kernel of the Palauan betelnut palm is larger, meatier, white colored, and gelatinous when young. It is preferred by islanders from the other Micronesian islands for chewing. These were obtained in Palau earlier this year.

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Photograph of the Palauan white variety's immature nut, showing the white color and larger kernel size.

I hope you enjoyed the photographs! I enjoy seeing the pics you all post.

-James
 
Here are some pics of the pandanus trees I'm growing. Not really palms, they're pretty interesting too. They all have thorns minus the last two varieties.

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Here is the Pandanus tree that I planted back in '96 at our ranch property from a cutting with leaves no longer than three feet. It's grown into a monster and is about 20 feet tall at the moment. It has fallen over once during a storm while I was away, so I can only imagine how tall it would've been. The leaves of this local cultivar are very strong and durable, as compared with the two wild varieties. It doesn't fruit or produce flowers, and is only cultivated through cuttings. The leaf width when flattened is about four to five inches, and about seven feet long when fully mature.


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Here are several plants I took as cuttings from the mother plant that I planted at my house last year (2012). They've already started branching and I've been taking cuttings from those branches, to train the plant to grow in a non-cluttered way. I've been replanting the cuttings to ensure I have an ample supply of leaves when the 2016 Festival Pacific is hosted on Guam.


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This is a variegated pandanus tree seedling I saved from a tree that I purchased in '97 which was highly variable in variegation and produced beautiful leaves which were about seven inches in width when flattened and about six feet long. It has yellow and green colored leaves. This one is one of the last cuttings I have that maintained it's variegation after the tree was cut down. Without me being on Guam, the tree wasn't pruned properly, and it was eventually cut down because it turned into a monster! haha. That and it was host to lots of spiders and snakes. It's produces a large of amount of suckers and it was huge so my father decided it was time to take it down.


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This is another type of variegated pandanus which has white, yellow and green leaves and similar leaf size, and shape as the weaving pandanus trees. The leaves are somewhat durable, but not as good as the one specifically cultivated locally for weaving. Very nice tree, I acquired several suckers from a tree which is growing at a local hotel. The general manager was quite happy that I was willing to "prune" the tree for him and take the plants away. Free tree maintenance is always welcome here I guess.

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This is one of the Pandanus trees which is planted around the island quite a bit and turns into a monster, with beautiful thornless, strap shaped leaves that measure about seven feet long when fully mature. The leaf color tends to have a green margin, cream to white colored striping in the middle with the occasional green stripes intermingled in the cream colored portions. I had one of these that grew to about two stories tall with lots of prop roots but it lost it's coloration one year for some reason. This was a cutting from a friends tree which I acquired in July and has taken off, throwing prop roots down now.

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This is the last pandanus tree photograph which I purchased at the Home Depot. It was labeled as a "dwarf pandanus" and hopefully it stays small with shorter leaves. It has a similar coloration as the larger variety thornless variegated pandanus tree that I'm growing.

Hope you enjoyed the pics!

James
 
Hello James,

Welcome and it's nice to have you here on Palmpedia. Thanks for all of your great pictures and would love to see more, around the farm, or town, of the people, culture, etc. Have you seen the variegated, yellow form of Adonidia? They apparently come true from the mother plant.

Jeff
 
James,

Have you ever been to the Floribunda web site. If not, you are missing out on the best way for people like you, in remote places, to get quality rare palms. Click on the ad at the top and check out Jeff's price list. I don't know anyone who has ever been dissatisfied when the get an order from Floribunda. There is no other place like it in the world for small super rare palms at reasonable prices.
 
Hello James,

Welcome and it's nice to have you here on Palmpedia. Thanks for all of your great pictures and would love to see more, around the farm, or town, of the people, culture, etc. Have you seen the variegated, yellow form of Adonidia? They apparently come true from the mother plant.

Jeff


Thank you Jeff,

I'll definitely post some pics of the local surroundings and some of the stuff done with coconut and pandanus leaves. Although the trade is not as common there are still folks who weave traditional/utilitarian items from coconut, nipa, pandanus and bamboo.

I'm not too familiar with the yellow form of Adonidia, but I'd love to see pics. I'll search around a little and see if I can find some pics.
 
James,

Have you ever been to the Floribunda web site. If not, you are missing out on the best way for people like you, in remote places, to get quality rare palms. Click on the ad at the top and check out Jeff's price list. I don't know anyone who has ever been dissatisfied when the get an order from Floribunda. There is no other place like it in the world for small super rare palms at reasonable prices.

I went and checked them out and seems pretty neat. I'll definitely add that site to my self-gifting Christmas list haha. I just purchased an interesting palm on eBay, Lemurophoenix halleuxii. Hopefully it makes the trip here. It is said to get fairly large, and I liked the color of the crown shaft.
 
Here's the picture of the mother plant from which I obtained the seeds for the Pinanga insignis palm seedling I'm growing. All the palms in that area showed similar coloration so I'm very hopeful my plants will be just as sexy! Haha.

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This is the pic I found on my phone. I'm still looking for the hi resolution ones of the crown shaft and fruit.
 
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