Pronunciation: uh-SEAL-uh-rafe RIGHT-ee-eye
Common Name: Everglades Palm, Silver Saw Palm, Paurotis Palm
Acoelorrhaphe wrightii is a pretty hardy clumping fan palm native to Florida and Central America which can make a excellent specimen palm in the right location. If uncontrolled and watered regularly, clumps can become rather large and dense- nearly impenetrable. However, does well if pruned regularly and can even be grown as a few stemmed plant, trimming off suckers as they come up, making an interesting specimen for smaller spaces. Not a good palm for the desert unless watered nearly daily.
Synonym: Paurotis wrightii
Appearance and Biology
- Habit: suckering with dense crowns of 20-30 leaves
- Height: 15'-20' tall
- Trunk: multiple, fibrous matte covering them (though often cleaned); 4" thick often with short petticoats of dead leaves on uppermost trunk; leaf bases unsplit and retained on trunks even after pruned
- Spread: 6'-20' (or more in very old clumps)
- Leaf Shape and color: palmate 1/2 circle, bright green dorsally but with a slight silvery sheen ventrally, with drooping leaflets; leaflets split about half length of leaf;
- Petiole: narrow, flattish and armed with small very sharp, yellow teeth
- Reproduction: monoecious
- Inflorescence: long, thick, yellow,slightly arching central peduncle 2'-4' long with thin, wavy branchlets along length covered with white bisexual flowers
- Fruit: green to yellow to black when ripe, spherical and 1.5cm
- Seed: 1cm spherical dark brown
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Horticultural Characteristics
- Minimum Temp: 20F
- Drought Tolerance: fair, but needs a lot of water in desert; prefers wet soils, even boggy
- Dry Heat Tolerance: good
- Wind Tolerance: fair
- Salt Tolerance: moderate
- Growth Rate: very slow to slow with age (rate of growth closely related to water availability and heat)
- Soil Preference: moist, rich, but does fairly well on wide variety of soils
- Light Requirement: full sun to partial sun
- Human Hazards: sharp petioles (careful when pruning)
- Disease or Horticultural Problems: mineral deficiency in alkaline soils; prone to Ganoderma fungus (not in California, though)
- Transplants?: fairly tolerant
- Indoor?: does fairly well, but needs to be kept away from traffic and in high light areas
- Availability: moderately rare but sources can generally be found at specialty nurseries; large plants rare in California but can be shipped (where legal) from east coast
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