Palms - Livistona carinensis

The recent Palms Journal (Vol. 52(2) 2008) has an article by Henry Ford, Gavin Conoche, Phil Trathan, and Harriet Gillet titled "The Decline of the Bankouale Palm in Djibouti" The jist of the article is that the Livistona carinensis palm is threatened in its native habitat in Africa, primarily from grazing habits of local goats and other animals. I have had some luck with seeds I obtained from the 2007 collection effort, provided to our Central Florida Palm and Cycad Society by Paul Craft of the IPS. I currently have 5 seedlings, each with at least two sets of leaves.

Palms - Tahina spectabilis

Here is my newest palm, a seedling of the newly discovered Tahina spectabilis from Magdagascar. This is a very large palm that dies after a massive flowering at the top of the palm. Only 100 of these palms exist in Madagascar.

news.nationalgeographic.com/news....html
www.kew.org/scihort/news...lm_genus.html

Hurricane season

Well, it is hurricane season here in Florida again. The first hurricane in the Atlantic basin, Bertha, appears to be no threat to us. But it did spur a lot of hurricane supply buying in our area... batteries, water, canned foods, etc.

Many folks here in Brevard are well aware of the danger from our pounding during the 2004 hurricane season. I fared pretty well, losing a few large trees, damage to most of the screens in my pool enclosure, and loss of about thirty roof shingles. Not everyone was so lucky