Pronunciation: car-pen-TARE-ee-uh ah-kew-min-AH-tuh
Common Name: Carpentaria Palm
Carpentaria acuminata is a very marginal palm for California, but some have managed to grow it up to trunking size. This northern eastern Australian palm is fairly well known about the tropics as very fast landscape palm with a prominently ringed, relatively thin trunk, a somewhat sparse crown of very recurved leaves and almost always in fruit with bright red or orange clusters about the bottom of its long, skinny crownshaft.
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Appearance and Biology
- Habit: solitary with a crown of about 6-9 feather leaves
- Height: 25'
- Trunk: single; 6" thick; prominently ringed with well spaced sections; pale green
- Crownshaft: 2' tall; very pale green to pale yellow-green; same diameter as the trunk with a slight bulge often near the base (were flowers are developing)
- Spread: 6'-10'
- Leaf Description: pinnate; strongly arching; leaflets fairly thin and tend to droop near the tips; leaves in a shallow 'V' to nearly flat; medium green; 6' long
- Petiole/Leaf bases: 8" long; narrow
- Reproduction: monoecious
- Inflorescence: 2' long; below crownshaft; starting at a 45 degree angle from trunk upward but becoming pendulous; highly branched; few if any reports of this palm flowering in California
- Fruit: ovoid; 1/2" long; yellow turning orange to finally bright red when ripe; contain irritant oxalates (not edible)
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Horticultural Characteristics
- Minimum Temp: 32F
- Drought Tolerance: low
- Dry Heat Tolerance: low to moderate
- Wind Tolerance: low
- Salt Tolerance: low
- Growth Rate: slow to moderate in California (very fast in tropics)
- Soil Preference: widely adaptable
- Light Requirement: full sun
- Human Hazards: mildly toxic fruits (oxalates)
- Disease or Horticultural Problems: tendency to develop pink rot
- Transplants?: unknown
- Indoor?: unknown
- Availability: rare
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