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T.fortunei Winsan is not so commonly seen as regular T.fortunei and it happens to develop round leaves natually and I am not sure if it is an independent species or a variant one.What makes them special is that they have full round leave with segments making a full round shape as compared to the 1/2 or 3/4 shape seen in other varieties. I ran into some seedlings and adult trees among others ,but failed to obtain any seeds because no palms bear seeds untill this year. It is beautiful and elegant no matter what it really is.

Gary,can you detail a little bit the temp and precip range of wisan and tesan during winter? I think you said tesan is by far the most cold hardy?what extremes of tempeture does tesan see during a cold winter(maximum lows)

Welcome aboard, Garry.
Where does this grow?

Truly a beautiful leaf form.
You say it's not so commonly seen as fortunei.
I've never seen it at any nurseries; only in internet pics.

Once this gets into the trade, it'll sell like pancakes.
Barb

I have three with rounded leaves. They are prone to wind damage so need extra protection as I have found out, here in the UK. Trachycarpus are very variable in appearance. Probably more common in the UK i guess

We'd love to see pics of your palms (and winter protection).

That was quite the snowfall in the UK!
News stories here featured people on skis slogging along sidestreets to get to work

Barb

Beautiful sight to see the landscape of England(London)covered in snow,there are some great pics on EPS site of members palms/cactus covered in up to a foot of snow! We have really had a break in the steady winter weather here in Iowa with temps in the 50s and mid 60s with thunderstorms before we head back to normal temps end of the week.

Jim, I wanted to see those pics you referred to.
Look what I got when I tried to register to EPS (never been there before)
"not accepting new members"

http://www.palmsociety.org/join/english1.shtml

Barb

Barb,try typing in European palm society on your address bar and going into the site, even if they are not accepting new members(not sure whats up with that!)you should be able to access their forum and check out the posts,let me know-JIM

That site has changed you need to register here http://www.palmsociety.org.uk/ . also www.hardytropicals.co.uk too. I wonder if i can get commission? They have lost users in the process of changing over to new server. Say Mo sent you . for uk galleries go here...and register then view the galleries.. the link to register is here http://www.growingontheedge.net/ and the gallery is here http://www.pbase.com/edgegallery/cool_temp_memb

thanks for those new links. Jim, that's the URL I used when I got the message...

Why on earth would anyone have to register just to view their photo gallery.
Visitor Count...

There are several sites I read now and then, and I've never registered.

Barb

BTW, Mo, thanks! Used your link (which got me into the gallery) without registering.

Thanks for the link Mo.

Beautiful pictures.

Allen

If I understand the original statements regarding the circular leaf form, this is an example of one growing in my garden.
These will grow randomly like this, as leaf form is quite variable even from seeds from the same tree.
Giving these palms a cultivar name ('Winsan') is a bit like changing the surname of your children. You can do it, but it won't change their genetics.

Cheers, Barrie.

Good analogy.

So,what are their genetics? This is the question nobody seems to be able to answer,this trait came from somewhere,I don't think fortunei just did this on it own,like o.k.I think I'll be a different palm this time!
Fortunei seems to pick up traits from what ever it grows around as far as other Trachycarpus go,if your kid suddenly grew a round head and his face changed shape,you both might want to change your name,I suggest you stick with something to keep it in the family......how about Myson!LOL
B.T.W.Barrie that is a beautiful son...ahh,I mean palm you have there,very healthy!

hardyjim wrote:So,what are their genetics? This is the question nobody seems to be able to answer,this trait came from somewhere,I don't think fortunei just did this on it own,like o.k.I think I'll be a different palm this time!
Fortunei seems to pick up traits from what ever it grows around as far as other Trachycarpus go,if your kid suddenly grew a round head and his face changed shape,you both might want to change your name,I suggest you stick with something to keep it in the family......how about Myson!LOL
B.T.W.Barrie that is a beautiful son...ahh,I mean palm you have there,very healthy!

Trachys are variable in their nature. Simple quantifyable fact as mentioned.. The same trachy may produce seeds that look totally different in their forms.

Jim,
The inheritance of traits such as round leaf would be controlled by many genets interacting. These 'forms' of fortunei are probably caused by some uncommon genetic recombination. 'Wisan', which I'll call 'round leaf', is simply one extreme of the range of traits that Trachycarpus fortunei can display... It's still fortunei. It's the same idea as us calling Trachycarpus wagnerianus a species, when it is clearly just a stable dwarf form of Trachy fortunei. The DNA sequences seem to lend support to this as well. Unfortunately, we don't have the ITS sequence from a 'Round leaf' fortunei nor from a 'tesan' fortunei to show that these are all the same thing.

We know that Nainital (formerly Takil) is fortunei. But, it also seems that these nainital palms are adapted to growing in mountainous environments and therefore might be able to take a bit more cold... They're still fortunei. It is a stable species with perhaps more variability then is usual, perhaps owing to the large range of the species and the diversity of the collections made. The entire genus is very closely related and it's this closeness that has led to many inproper descriptions of species being made. I'm not sure, but if I had to name the proper species off the top of my head (without checking the phylogeneitc study) I'd have to say that the following are the valid species: T. fortunei (including nainital, wagnerianus, wisan, tesan, misan, caespitosa, etc. etc.), T. nanus, T. takil (including T. urkense), T. princeps, T. martianus (inc. latisectus), T. oreophilus. I think that T. geminisectus is too new to classify.

Another way to think about this is to consider something like Opuntia polyacantha, where the same species ranges from pads 3" to 4" across with small yellow flowers, to plans with pads up to 12" with bright red flowers or even white flowers. That's a great deal of variability

Paul Ont wrote:Jim,
The inheritance of traits such as round leaf would be controlled by many genets interacting. These 'forms' of fortunei are probably caused by some uncommon genetic recombination. 'Wisan', which I'll call 'round leaf', is simply one extreme of the range of traits that Trachycarpus fortunei can display... It's still fortunei. It's the same idea as us calling Trachycarpus wagnerianus a species, when it is clearly just a stable dwarf form of Trachy fortunei. The DNA sequences seem to lend support to this as well. Unfortunately, we don't have the ITS sequence from a 'Round leaf' fortunei nor from a 'tesan' fortunei to show that these are all the same thing.

We know that Nainital (formerly Takil) is fortunei. But, it also seems that these nainital palms are adapted to growing in mountainous environments and therefore might be able to take a bit more cold... They're still fortunei. It is a stable species with perhaps more variability then is usual, perhaps owing to the large range of the species and the diversity of the collections made. The entire genus is very closely related and it's this closeness that has led to many inproper descriptions of species being made. I'm not sure, but if I had to name the proper species off the top of my head (without checking the phylogeneitc study) I'd have to say that the following are the valid species: T. fortunei (including nainital, wagnerianus, wisan, tesan, misan, caespitosa, etc. etc.), T. nanus, T. takil (including T. urkense), T. princeps, T. martianus (inc. latisectus), T. oreophilus. I think that T. geminisectus is too new to classify.

Another way to think about this is to consider something like Opuntia polyacantha, where the same species ranges from pads 3" to 4" across with small yellow flowers, to plans with pads up to 12" with bright red flowers or even white flowers. That's a great deal of variability

put it better then i ever could

Well said Paul.
Another hardy palm with a great deal of variablity is Chamaerops humilis for much the same reasons.


Cheers, Barrie.

Washingtonia is another,I guess we are well past the point of finding out if a palm like Wisan grew buy itself at sometime before it became know as a trait that fortunei exibits,maybe in time Garry can tell us if the palm he is calling Wisan is a stable form of this type or if it reverts back to fortunei form in time,or if these are already mixing with fortunei again where he is,we have already seen what has happened with Takil,Martin Giggons has even said that most fortunei sold these days probably have some "Takil blood"in them.