Pronunciation: DIP-siss lass-tell-ee-ANN-uh
Common Name: Red Neck Palm
Dypsis lastelliana is a fast-growing, highly ornamental for the tropics, but a pretty marginal palm for most areas of southern California, not to mention a really slow grower here, despite it's close relationship to another Dypsis, Dypsis leptocheilos, which IS a great palm for southern California. At this time, few, if any, mature individuals reside in California. However, despite its relatively poor choice as a landscape palm here, it is still a very attractive palm with its thick, dark red-brown fuzzy crownshaft and shuttlecock leaves- even relatively immature palms are rather ornamental.
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Appearance and Biology
- Habit: Solitary with a crown of 12-16 leaves
- Height: 20' estimated (very few maturing palms in southern California)
- Trunk: single; prominently ringed and white; 8" thick
- Crownshaft: incomplete; dark red-brown to brownish-red and fuzzy; 18" long, slightly wider than trunk below
- Spread: 10'-14'
- Leaf Description: pinnate; flat; 10' long; very upright orientation (like a shuttle-cock); leaflets flat to pendulous and a deep green; rachis a light, sea green
- Petiole/Leaf bases: nearly or completely non-existent (leaflets and rachis start nearly at the trunk); leaf bases have reddish fuzz like the 'crownshaft'.
- Reproduction: monoecious
- Inflorescence: arise 1-3 rings below 'crownshaft', upright and then laterally projecting to drooping at ends; about 18"-2' long; white, unisex flowers
- Fruit: ovoid and green to orange when ripe; 1" long
- Seed:
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Horticultural Characteristics
- Minimum Temp: 30F
- Drought Tolerance: poor
- Dry Heat Tolerance: poor
- Wind Tolerance: poor
- Salt Tolerance: unknown
- Growth Rate: very slow
- Soil Preference: moist and well draining
- Light Requirement: filtered light to full sun in ideal climate
- Human Hazards: none
- Disease or Horticultural Problems: prone to rot in winters
- Transplants?: unknown
- Indoor?: unknown
- Availability: very rare, mostly due to lack of popularity, since seed readily available in Hawaii
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