Trachycarpus princeps ,blue silver from the stone gate

garryendson · Post by **garryendson** » Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:17 pm

Take a look at my T.princeps grown from seeds of the stone gate., 2 different styles of bluish palms,quite interesting .They are all from the same batch of 20 seeds I sowed among which 18 are germinated gradually over several years, but half failed for various reasons .What's fascinating is that the slender ones exhibit more apparent white powder to the underside of the leaves.

TimMAz6 · Post by **TimMAz6** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:13 am

Great looking palms. Very cool to see a difference between the seedlings.

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:25 am

My guess is,they will look more alike as they grow.

If they do not,there may be some Fortunei blood in them.

JMO

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:20 pm

Very attractive.
I like the compact ones.

Paul Ont · Post by **Paul Ont** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 4:33 am

Nice Gary! So are these from those palms that we see on the rock cliffs? Very nice!

TerdalFarm · Post by **TerdalFarm** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:33 am

Very handsome palms!

I admit I know nothing about T. princeps.
--Erik

garryendson · Post by **garryendson** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 7:54 pm

The few seeds were picked from parent T.princeps on the cliffs in the stone gate .The following are several others from the same batch of seeds I am growing in the field and they all show nice blue colors .Also a comparison is made with nova and tesan and we can see its interesting difference from nova and tesan.

BILL MA · Post by **BILL MA** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:58 am

Beautiful palms you have there Garry! I just picked some of them up for myself this year, they are really cool palms.

Bill

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:05 pm

Interesting variations in that last pic.
Very nice.
Barb

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:27 am

Garry

One of your Princeps seeds you sent me winter before last overwintered in the ground
and came up this year,it's also a 2 ridger!

garryendson · Post by **garryendson** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:07 am

Jim
That's exciting and reasonable.
Unlike other trachycarpus, T.princeps have a very long dormancy-postripeness.I got 2 germinated this March out of 20 seeds from late 2007 while 16 germinated gradually over the past years.

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 8:14 am

Yea Garry,I was pretty excited to see a 2 ridger seedling where there wasn't one 2 weeks previous!
I had to check my records to see what was planted there,the only other possibility would have been Takil
but I figured it was Princeps as they were seeds from you.
They must be able to take some cold in ground too.

garryendson · Post by **garryendson** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:17 pm

Keep up with the good work and see more as T.princeps needs some more patience.
Here is my T.princeps with yellow stripes.
I doubted it could be caused by nutrition deficiency till the second split leave put out half yellow tinge.
not sure this cutie had its third leaves like this

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:43 pm

That is an awesome variegated Princeps Garry!

One in a couple thousand or more I would imagine!

I have a small Princeps a little bigger than that one that for
some reason is also growing the smaller leaves like that!

TerdalFarm · Post by **TerdalFarm** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:52 pm

Very cool!

It will be fun to see if its offspring carry that trait.
Here is a naive novice question: can palms be propagated vegetatively? Like with tissue culture methods?
--Erik

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 6:16 pm

Very exciting, Garry, it'll be interesting to watch it grow.
This could be really spectacular!
Barb

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:57 pm

TerdalFarm wrote:Very cool!
It will be fun to see if its offspring carry that trait.
Here is a naive novice question: can palms be propagated vegetatively? Like with tissue culture methods?
--Erik

It has been done with tissue culture Erik-mostly Date palms and Coconuts but......
One of the major obstacles concerning the practical application of plant tissue culture to mass propagation
has been the difficulty of successful transfer of plant-lets from invitro conditions to a soil medium.
Best success is with meristem portions as they are easier to sterilize-TMI?

Something like 50-90% losses do not make this a viable way to mass produce- as in the case of
crop production-Coconuts,Dates.

There are also(if my understanding is correct)problems with plants developing waxy cuticles on leaves,
this would greatly reduce plants ability to handle stress and of course cold hardiness.

TerdalFarm · Post by **TerdalFarm** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:38 pm

Thanks, Jim. I'll try to learn more about this. No, not TMI!
In college, we did tissue culture propagation of Coleus; pretty easy.
I assume we used Coleus simply because it was easy....
--Erik

Paul Ont · Post by **Paul Ont** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:27 am

Guys- For palms to stay true to type, as well, you'd need to use meristematic tissue, since other tissue, e.g. leaves, can lead to polyploidy and other genetic differences. If I had to guess I'd say that immature cotyledons would be the easiest way to TC palms, since this is the way that it is done in barley... Oh, and it might also be the appropriate tissue to use in genetic transformation experiments too...

As for the adjustment, the plant WILL be fine once they're adjusted to outdoor growth conditions. The genes are still the same, but, since the plants will have been 'babied' in high humidity completely sterile conditions, they will need longer to establish... Oh, and they would be grown without roots for a while too, so you have to allow a longer time for root development! Otherwise, after 2 or so years there should be no difference between a seed grown palm and one from TC. Banana's are routinely TC'd (e.g. most basjoo you buy at nurseires, Siam Ruby, lasiocarpa, etc.) and I'd wager that most of the bananas we grow, unless you grew it yourself from seed or got a division from a friend, would be TC grown... I know for sure that my basjoo was a 'plug' fresh from a TC facility when I bought it!

TerdalFarm · Post by **TerdalFarm** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:36 am

Thanks for the insight, Paul.
I don't want to get too far from Garry's original topic on his thread, but admit I know very little about TC. Maybe you could start a new thread?
I spent an hour researching palm TC yesterday and was delighted to find that (as Jim said) a lot of work has already been done with commercially important palms. We'll all be busy with palm care the next few months, but this seems like a great February topic when our winter protection is done and Spring is yet to, uh, spring. In the meantime I'll be scheming to find out if cold-hardy palm TC is something I can do with University facilities.... --Erik