Pronunciation: gway-HIGH-uh ar-jye-RAT-uh
Common Name: none
Guihaia argyrata is a nice, fairly hardy, smaller palm for California. It is a suckering fan palm with a spiny base and fairly slow growing- good for a potted palm as well. It tolerates full sun and some shade as well. Easy, hardy and attractive. Gets left off some lists because it is hard to pronounce, has no common name and is not an overly showy palm, but should be planted far more often.
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Appearance and Biology
- Habit: clustering with a sparse crown of about 15-20 leaves
- Height: 1' (though less is usually the case) of trunk, but overall height of 4'-5' normally
- Trunk: multiple, though other than central 'trunk', the rest are barely visible, and leaves almost come right out of the ground; covered with dark fiber and upright, long, thin, spines, not strong enough to go through gloves or even skin unless forced to
- Crownshaft: none
- Spread: 3'-6'+
- Leaf Description: palmate; deeply divided right down to petiole; strongly reduplicate; 18"-24" wide/long; bright glossy green on top and markedly silvery to coppery below; leaflets fairly stiff but can flop a bit if well watered in humid environment
- Petiole: 3'-4' long unarmed, thin with flat upper surface and rounded lower surface
- Reproduction: monoecious
- Inflorescence: 2' long and very highly branched, arising from within leaf bases
- Fruit: 6mm pale blue, to blue-black when ripe
- Seed: 4mm spherical
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Horticultural Characteristics
- Minimum Temp: 24F
- Drought Tolerance: fair
- Dry Heat Tolerance: good
- Wind Tolerance: fair to poor
- Salt Tolerance: unknown
- Growth Rate: very slow
- Soil Preference: widely adaptable
- Light Requirement: full to partial sun
- Human Hazards: spiny near leaf bases, though not severely sharp
- Disease or Horticultural Problems: none so far
- Transplants?: fairly good but sets back a few years sometimes
- Indoor?: not known
- Availability: fairly rare, particularly of any size, but available from palm specialty nurseries
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