Palmyra Palm

Edited: 02/02/2013 at 12:15 PM by Thaumaturgist

There is a fruiting Borassus (aethiopum) at the Michael place in Indian River County. Central Florida Palm & Cycad Society has been selling its donated seeds for some years now. Is toddy made only from Borassus flabellifer?

Excellent question.

All three major Borassus,

flebellifer
aethiopum
madagascariensis

are capable of producing the sap. However, it appears that only the Asian Borassus (B flabellifer) is used for tapping its sap.

In India, it became the cheapest and plentiful source of making the local moonshine by proper fermentation, not necessarily sanitary, of the sap collected at dawn from clay jars that were hung the previous evening.

The natives called it TAARRIE in Bengali, and it came out as TODDY when the British tried to pronounce it. Needless to say, B flabellifer came to be known as the Toddy Palm.

Thanks, Asit, for the explanation.

#3

Edited: 02/02/2013 at 12:27 PM by Thaumaturgist

Here's an old pic of me with my backyard Borassus

Yeah, Char, your backyard at Fairchild?

Oh, did I say 'my backyard' I must be getting old LOL!

#4

Palmyra Palm #5

Palmyra Palm #6

Found this in a small market in Kolkata (old Calcutta), India by accident in March 2016.
A ripe fruit like this is very untimely for March.

The seller said that it was an unique tree with 2 crops. One in late spring and the other in July/August/September. She added that the crops include few 1-seeded, few 2-seeded and rest were all 3-seeded.

I was so fascinated with this that I finally made a trip to this remote village to see this unique tree.

Palmyra Palm #7

Collected a pod with 2 seeds over the holidays in PR, a the Tropical Agricultural Research Station. Hopefully when I return in March, they will have begun to germinate. I've successfully germinated a few from some seeds I got in FL. The flesh smells like red bull. The one in FL was Aethiopum and the one in PR is Flabellifer. I like both. The Flabellifer at FIT is beautiful. The black fronds of the Aethiopum is awesome. The geometry of the flabellifer looking up into the canopy is a great photo op. I've gotten one of the best palm shots ever from that.

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Thanks KARMA for the great info.
I didn't know that PR can grow Flabellifer. Please take lots of shots of the tree and the fruits if you can.

I also didn't know that the one in FIT is a Flabellifer.

The Michaels has the Aethiopum.

The only fruiting Flabellifer in the US was at Fairchild and it became a victim of Huricane Andrew in 1992. It never recovered.

Fairchild's replacement Flabellifer had been fruiting since 2013 but the fruits are not full size yet. The pair, side by side male and female of Aethiopum in Fairchild is doing great.

Fruit & Spice Park's Flabellifer (also a pair) had started to fruit finally.

Hmmm...I could be wrong on the one at FIT. I'm pretty sure I read the label on the one at TARS. I'll try to remember to dig up some photos of it, but I know I got a pic of the seed pod...not sure how well one could tell from that though. I'm going to also try to dig up the pic from FIT I took. Are you aware if it has fruited?

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Been a while since I used this way of attaching photos, but here goes attempt 1.

May not be Flab.



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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Me and Mike Dahme visited one time at least 10 years or more ago and I saw the tag saying B aethiopum.

I also had a layout of the trees in the FIT garden from the 'Friends of FIT Garden'
that identified it as B aethiopum. I need to verify.

You're probably right...Sounds like it may be a male too.

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Also, there is a fruiting B flabellifer in the Edison Estate (now Edison-Ford Estates) in Ft. Myers located about 100 ft away from the Caloosahatchee River.