Palm Puzzle Contest - No. 2

#1 Calyptrocalyx elegans
#2 Thrinax radiata (young) There's a little peice of puzzle blocking the top hastula, I just know there's a deep distal adaxial hastula waiting under there.
And if I did win this I would have you give the money to Marcus for credit on my next order, that's what a good palm junkie should do. Buy more palms!
 
Ok, that said, what does Len grow? Sorry, I don't know his location or growings.:)

He's giving preferential hints to Len. Only Len knows what Len has killed.:mad:

No more clicks from me. It doesn't matter if you remove all the pieces, I still won't know what palms these are.:confused: Every time I think I have the answer, then someone else posts an answer, and I think, "Oh, that's it, they've got it." But no....
 
Ok, that said, what does Len grow? Sorry, I don't know his location or growings.:)

Hey Tiff (Tiff and husband Matt are from the Big Island),

Len's a good buddy and from SoCal. They wish they could grow a lot of things there. That was no reflection on his growing abilities, just his desires. :)

I'm surprised he even knew there was a palm named Pholidostachys, let alone spell it.
 
He's giving preferential hints to Len. Only Len knows what Len has killed.:mad:

No more clicks from me. It doesn't matter if you remove all the pieces, I still won't know what palms these are.:confused: Every time I think I have the answer, then someone else posts an answer, and I think, "Oh, that's it, they've got it." But no....

Kim,

I never suspected that hidden in that exterior reeking of perseverance was a quitter. Come on, anyone that can make it to the top of Mt. K can cope with a little palm puzzle.
 
#1 Calyptrocalyx elegans
#2 Thrinax radiata (young) There's a little peice of puzzle blocking the top hastula, I just know there's a deep distal adaxial hastula waiting under there.
And if I did win this I would have you give the money to Marcus for credit on my next order, that's what a good palm junkie should do. Buy more palms!

Well,

Jeff is out of luck.
 
Dean, I hope you did not make it hard by making it Calyptrocalyx. I mean COME ON!

Calyptrocalyx lauderbachianus and Licuala glabra . Final offer.


By the way. I have Pholidostachys sp Ken Foster growing in my .... greenhouse.
 
WE HAVE A WINNER.

CONGATULATIONS MATT.


WE'RE COMING OVER TO SOCAL ON JULY 4TH FOR A WEEK. MAYBE MATT SHOULD TAKE BOTH LEN AND I OUT TO LUNCH. I COULD GIVE YOU THE $50 THEN.:D

I'LL POST THE FULL SHOTS LATER WHEN I GET A LITTLE MORE TIME. THANKS FOR PLAYING
 
Wahoo! I never win anything. Dean, I still want to see your garden, and meet you in person. My family is ditching me for five weeks starting next week so I can do all the "palming" I want...except that I have to remodel the kitchen, lay 15,000 pounds of retaining wall blocks and install irrigation. I should a few seconds to spare here and there.

Len, I can't believe you didn't get it. When I saw your Pholidostachys guess and looked up a photo I knew you were right. The red petiole on #1 was driving me nuts, and the crown of the palm does not seem to be in the photo, which makes it really tough. The petiole color was too bright for Lemurophoenix, and while the leaflets looked like Areca, the red petiole was just not right. It was driving me crazy.

The 2nd one I was nearly 100% sure on since the removal of pieces the day before yesterday. If you look near the bottom, you can see the base of the palm and the leafbases are split...so it couldn't be Licuala (or a lot of other stuff). You could see the lower hastula, and there was no hint of costapalmate (ruling out Sabal...it does look a bit similar to mauritiiformis or yapa). On the lower-mid right, there was the edge of a leaf segment and it was toothed or jagged, which I'm guessing is why everyone was guessing Licuala. But since the leaf bases were split it was down to a pretty small group of palms, not including Licuala. Cryosophila is VERY similar, with split leaf bases and similar looking overall, but the leaflet ends are pointed. In then end, there are basically two puzzle pieces that seal it on Itaya, the split leaf bases and jagged leaf segment ends, I don't know of any other palm with these traits that is not ginormous (like Borassodendron, which was a great early guess).

Matt
 
I am going to hang my Philidelphia layer shingle for a moment here. I went through every species in the encyclopedia when the contest was running. I notice now that the contest is over that the two mystery photos were removed from the encyclopedia. So as a suggestion for the future Dean perhaps you could use a photo of a species that is in the encyclopedia, but not the same photo used in the encyclopedia. I did notice yesterday that the Itaya photo was absent.
I knew when I was going through the photos in the encyclopedia that Dean wouldn't just pick out a picture and use it in the contest but I wouldn't have wagered that he would remove the picture all together.
So, just as a suggestion Dean use two species from the encyclopedia, just use different photos. If you think about it if someone unlike myself was observant enough they would have noticed the photos missing and reasoned that those were the two in the contest.
So to answer your question Dean I would give it a 2.5 based solely on the fact that there was no point of reference within palmpedia to assist in the solving of the mystery photos.
Oh and Sorry to Jeff Marcus, I'll have to postpone that palm order for a spell.
 
Congratulations to Matt -- I was expecting him to win, he has a reputation for palm IDs -- think Tahina. I was also put off the scent by the missing photos, foolishly thinking Dean wouldn't pick a palm he didn't even have a single photo of, not taking into account his diabolical scheming thought process.:D Admittedly, when I found photos of the Itaya elsewhere, no trunk was shown and I thought the leaves too split to match. When you start looking for colorful emergent leaves, there are SO many palms! That's when I knew my chances were slim to none, but I had Verschaffeltia splendida and Heterospathe intermedia lined up for next guesses...:). I did not expect the palms to be (what I would consider) so obscure. So, yes, it was very difficult and frustrating, just the way you hoped it would be, Dean!:rolleyes:
 
Well,

Let me explain, and take some blame, with the caveat that I underestimated all you guys again. I had no idea you would be so scheming, sleuthful, and persistent. :)

Of course I wanted photos that when totally "naked" would be a sincere and unmistakable representation of the mystery palm. And it shouldn't have any other palms surrounding it, as that would really make a mess for a player when individual pieces were removed. Believe it or not, even with the 1,000s of photos I had, that was not an easy task, considering you guys would nail even a semi-common palm in no time.

For other reasons, I was under a deadline to publish the PalmMag. So, I took a chance (and was a little lazy) that no one would suspect, or be curious enough to act on the hunch that I may just use a photo(s) from the Encyclopedia. And I figured if someone was that diligent (to peruse the entire Encyclopedia on a hunch), and there was still some puzzle solving that was needed, they deserved a win.

In addition, I had to change the file names, because I didn't want even a coded name to be visible for those who knew how to check. And for the first few days I had the next day's photo already uploaded and ready to go, until I thought that someone would be smart enough to know where to look and find it. So, I tried to cover my tracks from you sneaky types.

Well, for a week, it appeared as if I was right. It didn't seem to be an issue. The two photos remained visible in the Encyclopedia, and no one seemed keen enough to realize it.

Then FRITO (the winner of the first contest) emailed me and indicated he knew the answers. He had looked through the entire Encyclopedia and found the corresponding photos. But he was gracious and "ungreedy" enough not to appear gluttonous, and chose not to guess publicly (Thanks Luke, good sportsmanship, and nice gesture). So it was at that time I chose to remove the photos.

But it really became a moot point almost immediately because very shortly thereafter, I received an email from Matt in SD indicating he knew the answer, but was forbidden from guessing because of the time limit. But when he was to again become eligible for another guess, he wouldn't be near a computer. And his answer was right, but of course I couldn't verify or give him credit until the official guess was registered. I think he just wanted "bragging rights" in case someone got it right before he could. :) So at 8:20 PM Matt got back to the computer - End of Story.

So, the photos weren't removed until the very end, and their removal really didn't play but a smail part (if at all), to maybe fog the playing field for some at the very end.

While as sneaky and conniving as some of you are/were, some were less tactful. Len actually cracked the case, but in a way in which he couldn't have reaped the reward. Itaya was already publicly picked by Matt, so that "cat" was sort of already "out of the bag." As Matt said, when Len picked Pholidostachys (with no other palm named), that's what cracked the case for him.

So now I know how "you all" think. :) And can "out think" you next time. :) If you would like to do another some time, let the rest of the people know you thought it was fun. I was hoping for more participation. But if even this small group would like to do another some time, now that the "bugs" are worked out, I'm game. And I'll keep my eyes out for good clear single shots of semi-obscure palms (that I will keep from uploading) to use next time.
 
Aloha!

Congrats to Matt in SD!

I think the contest was challenging, just like it should be. I am not quite so palm savvy as the rest of the crew, but this gave me a chance to hone in on some features that I have noticed in my garden and try to use them in this contest. Good mind stimulus. I am not familiar with either of the palms featured, but I learned something new. I did use palmpedia to reference my guesses and didn't quite notice that the 2 palms were missing photos. Very observant folks here, but that is how this is done, being observant. While doing some research on my guesses and on the others provided, I did find a picture of the Itaya amicorum with a trunk. If can be found in the Betrock's Cultivated Palms of the World, p. 128. My husband, Mathew, did agree with that guess, but I still thought is was a Licuala. I thought I saw enough of the hastula to make a good guess. I laid awake one evening thinking about Puzzle B as Borassodendron, but quickly realized it could not possibly be it by checking the yard in the morning. I also felt that puzzle A was pretty close to the Calptrocalyx. It looked so much like what I see in my garden. Anyhow, it was all good in exercising the mind and I look forward to the next puzzle. Dean, you did a good job.
 
Thanks Tiff,

Two other points of interest.

- The photos have been restored for the curious.

- Any registered user could have easily restored the photos themselves. As some of you know (Kim) all pages are easily editable by users. All I did was take the G off of .JPG. A quick click on edit, and adding a G would have restored the photo.

Which brings me to another point. Any of you can add, edit, contribute info to any page on the wiki you like. That is the concept - a group project.
 
- "The two photos remained visible in the encyclopedia and no one seemed keen enough to realize it".
- "So it was at that time I chose to remove the photos".
-"So, the photos weren't removed until the very end, and their removal really didn't play but a smail part (if at all), to maybe fog the playing field for some at the very end".
- "I received an email from Matt in SD indicating he knew the answer, but was forbidden from guessing because of the time limit. But when he was to again become eligible for another guess, he wouldn't be near a computer".
"Frito" alerted you to a means to ID the palms by way of reasoning through the encyclopedia. Which others of us may have been able to zero in on. So you changed the game in the middle of play.
And yes I was one of those "fogged" at the "very end" by the removal of the photos!!! When I said I looked through every photo in the encyclopedia, I wasn't looking for the exact photos per se, I was moreover trying to get morpology help. I have a few palm books but none that are as species specific as the on-line database herein.
Some of us would have stood a chance at guessing based on the photos or other photos of the same species in the encyclopedia.
Then you were receiving other e-mails from contestants about their guess'. I guess that's fair but if all of us e-mailed you with chatter about the game it might be a grey area with regard to the rest of us not privey to the chatter. Bragging rights are great but should there be two threads to the game?
I congratulate Matt on his earned win but....
Maybe some of Edmond Hoyle's guidance is in order for the next game. These are just observations to perhaps help keep things smooth for the next game.
So do your best to out think us just try to out think any potential irregularities in play.
 
Justin,

Just so there is no misunderstandings or hard feelings...........................

Those photos were removed in the wee hours of June 24. They were up and available for everyone to view for the first 9 1/2 days of the contest. They were removed about 12 hours after FRITO informed me that he had solved the puzzle, and how he solved it. And about 12 hours before Matt made the correct guesses.

FRITO could have posted his findings instead, and the contest would have ended. No controversy.

As near as I can tell from the logs and the time differences, about 12 hours after I deleted the photos, Matt informed me he thought he had solved the puzzle. He was working from exactly the same set of information that everyone else had. In fact, everyone had the same exact level playing field at all times.

But because he was under an embargo due to a previous guess, he had to wait another 3-4 hours to officially post his guess. He received neither a confirmation nor denial of his guesses from me after his email. Only that he had to play by the rules and wait. He waited until he could "legally" post a guess, and the rest is history.

So, think about it this way. The contest was 240 hours long. The photos were removed FOR EVERYONE 12 hours before the winning guess. So they were up and viewable for the first 95% of the game.

Of course it is possible that someone else might have won had the photos remained up the last 12 hours. But since they did no one any good for the previous 212 it is probably unlikely. And the fact remains that everyone had exactly the same clues and information to go on at all times.

But as stated, if we have another contest, the photos will not be the same as ones in the Encyclopedia. And BTW, I don't know where anyone got the idea that they had to be palms that are listed in the Encyclopedia anyway. 90% of the palm species aren't even listed yet. :(
 
Wow. I did not know people took this so serious. I might have spent the time looking through the books to get that second one ID'ed and I never would have thrown guesses out (Pholidostachys) without the second positive ID. It's on like Donkey Kong next time!
 
Dean,
I am surprised you actually used photos from the encyclopedia. I never actually looked at the encyclopedia, but did do some google searches, and checked Daves Garden and PACSOA sites. There are photos of these palms on the web, so I don't think either having them or not having them in the Palmpedia encyclopedia really matters.

But...since you could walk out to your garden and snap a photo of any one of 100's of palm species (either Cali or Hawaii) so that no one could just match a particular photo, that would be best.

Another thing that should be cleared up before the next contest is the meaning of one post per 24 hours. Does this mean one post per 24 hour day...so you could post at 11:59PM one day and 12:01AM the next day, or does it mean there needs to be 24 hours between guesses, or does it mean you can never have more than 2 guesses in any 24 hour period (this is really what "one guess per 24 hours" would mean in legal speak), or does it mean that you can only guess one time per "round" (each time more pieces are removed). I think that the most straightforward rule would be that you can post once per round. Dean usually posted each time pieces were removed, which would mean each contestant can only have one guess between Dean's update posts.

And just to beat this "email" thing to death a bit more, I was going to be away from my computer until several hours past when I would be allowed to post a new guess, and I was pretty certain I had the right answer. I sent Dean an email basically asking if there was any way for him to register the guess that I emailed to him when my time was up assuming no one had gotten it first. I figured it he wouldn't do it, but it doesn't hurt to try. When I got home, I had a PM from Dean saying I had to just post when I could, no one had won yet so I posted. No preferential treatment.

One more idea for the game. At some point it might be fun if there were more photos (maybe 5 or more) and Dean could say how many were right in each guess, but not say which were correct. Sort of the like the game "Mastermind".

Oh yeah...and if the prize were like... One Million Dollars. I think more people would play.

Matt
 
Maybe I should hire an attorney. :D

Matt, what I was trying to say with the 24 hour thing was - that whenever it was you decided to guess, you could not then guess again for 24 hours. There were/are two reasons for this.
1) It is very easy for me to see the time of your previous post and determine if it was before or after the 24 hour time limit.
2) But the main reason was I wanted to be unpredictable when pieces were removed, so one day the Aussies would have first look, and the next the East Coast, etc. It didn't seem fair to me to always remove pieces in the middle of the night for a particular time zone.
So, doing it by when the pieces were removed would also get too complicated. I still haven't completely figured out how the times are posted (or adjusted for in the software) from the different zones, and between the wiki and the forum it appears to disiplay differently. In addition, I am not sure what happens if people have their individual time settings incorrect. Which leads me to another way to possibly cheat that I didn't think of before - changing the time zone in your preferences. :)

Regarding suggestions --- keep them coming. I thought another twist on things could be one photo with 3-5 palms in it, and requiring a guess of all. But for now, I've already sunk $100 into this promotional endeavor, and only got about 5 new people signed up.
 
Hi Dean For the record there are no hard feelings! Perhaps some misunderstandings for how the puzzle game rules work, but no hard feelings. I'm sorry I can't seem to articulate my suggestions for future games better. And at the risk of coming off as a nit picker I just wanted to point out what I thought to be inconsistancy in the puzzle game. I will leave this subject alone and I look forward to you doing another puzzle game soon. Cheers!
P.S. I will restate my suggestion that whatever pics you choose for future games be species that are represented in the palmpedia. After all isn't the point of the game to encourage use of and participation in Palmpedia? As Matt pointed out he was all over the internet looking at other sites for pics. I hope this was a helpful suggestion.
 
Last edited:
Let me add a few cents-worth of my own opinion regarding the competition format, if I may. The basic elements that would excite many more punters such as I, including the cash, are two-fold. Firstly, confidence. People like to enter competitions once they feel sure they know the answer, so make it a lot easier to ID the palm. Secondly, anticipation. All the winners names go into a bag, and the winner is drawn using random-name picker software that can have a graphical interface, so we can all watch the winner be picked and fall off our chairs. Make it weekly, and make it 10 bucks - not 50 bucks after 10 days of head-scratching. That way, people have something to LOOK FORWARD too. So you enter the competition...You feel sure lots of other people will know the answer too, but you hope your name gets picked. How many entered? It was so easy, it must have been hundreds! The anticipation becomes unbearable, as you wait for the draw date. In fact, you cancel all appointments for said date. When you don't win, you say to yourself, "Damn! I was right too (and better luck next time)!" Eventually Dean, you can charge people to enter the competition, and the prize money goes up. Before you know it, we're making palm millionaires, yes, all of us, who will of course have bought shares in the Deano, "Who's That Palm?" Lotto Extravaganza! Just a thought.
 
Congrats Matt!

Dean is correct with his information timeline. When Dean said this one was hard he was right, I would have never guessed these palms, never even knew the names existed, But I found them in the encylopedia and knew I had a match. I knew it was going to be much harder since the first one and looked for the most remote palms that I didnt even know if they were 'fan' or 'feather'.

I opted not to chime in since I didnt want to spoil this puzzle. I thought I would let you guys/gals have some fun this time and it was. I will be ready for the 3rd puzzle however!

Luke
 
Again,

I am absorbing all the input. And like many projects that may seem simple on the surface, they can (and do) become more involved. But controversy is good, I guess, if it creates awareness.

I can see who and how many are looking at the puzzle. And it wasn't a whole lot. And you can see how many times the puzzle page is actually clicked on by the counter at the bottom. And probably 100 of those clicks are mine. And each of you know how many times you clicked, so you can see, not many played. In addition the topic I started on PalmTalk didn't generate one reply, despite my daily reminders for a while. So I'm glad those who played enjoyed it, and I may do another hoping for some traction.

John, one thing that I was dreading, and one thing why frequent small prizes are not practical, is what do I do if someone in a country other than the USA wins? I can't send a check, and a method that works may be different for each winner. And the charge to send money internationally is not cheap. So just another problem.
 
I just read through the entire thread now that this contest is over. That was fun Dean! Great game!

Most of you probably know the wild and zany MattyB, but you may not know ( I try to hide it ;) ), that he is a member of my extended family (nephew). And he has made the decision to disqualify himself from the contests for that reason. Would any of you have any objections if he played in the next one? I'll warn you, he is getting good at IDs, and he might be a formidable opponent.
 
Having Mattyb play sounds great by me. What are your thoughts on previous winners being eligable? I noticed that Frito was gracious in his bowing out by way of technical reasons but as I understand it now previous winners can play each round. For what it's worth that's fair to me as well, just as long a it dosen't boil down to the same two or three people winning every time by way of their supernatural palm ju-ju. Slow folks like me need all the breaks we can get.
And Dean, I'm sorry no one on Palmtalk lit up the board with your generous offer of a $50.00 puzzle to solve. It just reminds me why I like posting here better. Not to slight the IPS in any way. And a thanks is in order for your hard work to give us all something to do by pulling our hair out trying to solve the bloody palm puzzle.
 
As Justin already knows, I was on the same wavelength as he, at about the same time via PM about the problem of a few Palm ID Geniuses monopolizing the contests. That will be taken into account.

In addition, I am "negotiating" for some sponsorship and some extra fun and goodies so we can continue and make this a regular fun feature.

I shouldn't take advantage of pushing and promoting Palmpedia on PalmTalk. So I don't. I only post the occasional reference to things that I think palm people would want to know about. Providing a good site should eventually accomplish the eventual goal of getting more members. And word of mouth is really the best advertising. (hint, hint)
 
It was a very fun and great contest Dean,thanks for that!:)
I think the difficulty level was exactly as it should be and would like that in a future contest too! I see that with each puzzle i get closer to good guesses and i am very happy for that,they help you get better at difficult IDs and its great!I think the reason there wasnt any reply at Palmtalk regarding the second contest is that you have to register to Palmipedia and make a guess there so why comment on Palmtalk when you will post at Palmipedia anyway? I guess it could help draw more attention to the contest if someone said something like the contest is great or its getting really interesting but i didnt thought of it then...:(

Congratulations Matt for the correct IDs and thank you for your comment about my Borassodendron guess:)

Looking forward for another contest!:)
 
Top