Neoveitchia storckii

This interesting palm is endemic to the island of Viti Levu in the Fiji Islands. In habitat, it is in great danger as it is a primary palm used for house construction in the low mountainous rain forest. It is limited to what Rifle and Craft describe as Zone 11 and marginal in Zone 10b. In habitat, the palm attains a heighth of 50 feet.

I have viewed this palm at Fairchild Gardens in Miami,Florida and at Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach,Florida. It is truly unique and has an interesting nearly black crownshaft. The palm has interesting leaves that are up to 18 feet long with 30 inch long leaflets. It's trunk is ringed.

Palm literature identifies this palm as a humidity lover but indicates that it also survives in the warmest areas of Southern California. It would be great to see pictures of the California specimens.
 
Bubba,

I really have my doubts about it's SoCal possibilities. However, I have not heard of any even being tried there.

Thanks for the info. Have you considered trying to add info like you have given directly to the Encyclopedia "Species Page?" I can take that info and copy and paste it there. But I'll wait, in case you wish to give it a try. All you need to do is click on the edit tab and add the text. It looks a lot harder than it is, and there is no way you can mess it up. Others can add more info, correct, or polish the layout later as well

Go to a page that already has some descriptive material on it an check out the edit. It would be really nice if more people would be willing to add their knowledge and pics to the Encyclopedia so we could build on the reference resource.

If you don't want to, no problem. i don't mind copying and pasting stuff myself. I'm just trying to encourage more contributors like on Wikipedia.
 
We've been trying to insure this one for Vero Beach for the last ten years. So far this palm has taken all of our winters unprotected with no problems. The younger three gallon plants will show some cold shock as the new growing season comes on, but all in all this should gain in popularity for South Florida. I don't have a picture handy of the ones that were brought here in '98. I do have a pic of a baby (two year old) that was planted during the fall of '08 and received no protection from elements this past winter. It took 30f and photo #1 illustrates the damage. It has since opened the spear you see in photo #2 and seems to be moving along just fine. The '98 specimen took no damage at all.
So, not that this is absolute proof that Neovietchia can take a lot of cold but maybe I will propose that it can go to 10a at this point.
 

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