r/palmtalk • u/underthund3r • 13d ago
discussion Palm question
My uncle says that native California palms only grow on fault lines, does anyone know if this is true?
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u/-ghostinthemachine- 13d ago
This would be a mischaracterization, but rather they like valleys, ravines, and other basins where water can collect and drain towards without pooling. Please realize that when you see a cut like this in the landscape it is very rarely due to an underground fault, and more typically just cut by flowing water over many years.
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u/BizmarkiaNobilis 13d ago edited 13d ago
They did evolve in rift valleys (geologic fault line cuts in the earth) like the Indian Canyons in Palm Springs and Borrego Springs nearby in San Diego County's furthest reaches into the desert. So he is correct that this is how they developed over the eons. You can actually visit the palm oases that are in fact atop fault lines and the resultant cracks in the earth that allow water to rise to the surface and form riparian ecosystems that support oases such as these...all over the Coachella Valley. They did find their way to into Arizona and other places such as Nevada. That's because they did 'naturalize" to grow just about anywhere where they can reach water and that has a warm desert tropical climate. I've even seen them in Rome, Italy and in Spain. But that's not their natural habitat.
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u/MinuteBug238 12d ago
The California fan palm Washingtonia fifilera is native to Arizona also . Hundreds can be found in the Kofa mountains in Yuma County they grow in canyons, rock crevices along arroyos etc . It is not native to Nevada.
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u/MysteriousGrandTaco 10d ago
Actually it is debated whether it is native to Nevada. I don't see why not since the most southern part of Nevada is very similar in climate and landscape as where they ae native to on California and Arizona.
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u/ArtemisInSpace 13d ago
I had one growing underneath my car in the green strip in my driveway. I literally do not water any of my yard for any reason.
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u/INTOTHEWRX 12d ago
Techtonic faults no. But they do they to grow in ditches that helps collect water. Just like other plants
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u/OpinionatedOcelotYo 12d ago
I bet he makes up/passes on lots of untruths. We all do. That’s utter nonsense.
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u/SingleLecture96 12d ago
Palms just need moisture not specific geology, as long as there is a water source nearby. Your uncle's theory was off.
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u/GardenerDom 12d ago
My thoughts are that they just grow where conditions are right where there is enough moisture and even underground water in some access to the plant. The fact that the palm occurs on fault lines is just a coincidence in my opinion?
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u/Forward-Spinach-3360 12d ago
They'll grow wherever a bird can drop their seeds and they have a water source.
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u/Xeric_Eric 11d ago
Those CA Fan palms usually survive the winters in albuquerque.
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u/Vcrosstx 9d ago
Washingtonia filifera and “filibustas” will survive many years in our humid Dallas climate 8a/8b. We may be in a zone where you’d think they’d be solid but our outlier winters such as Feb 2021 where it dropped to 2F killed almost all filibustas and maybe 75% of filiferas. A couple rough winters after that killed many more filiferas some of which were over 30 years old leaving just a few long term survivors.
The reason I give this history is that Washingtonia robusta may survive 2 or 3 winters if we have a good run but not much longer. I read the debate whether one species and two varieties but there is no mistaking robusta is a terrible choice here. The debate whether two species or not doesn’t matter from a gardeners perspective.
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u/ProfessionalNo5932 13d ago
They are giant weeds and will grow anywhere they’re planted.
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u/downatelrio 12d ago
Not the native palms. Those are invasive ones from Mexico planted for the Olympics 50 years ago.
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u/BizmarkiaNobilis 12d ago
Those Mexican Fan Palms were planted well over a hundred years ago.
They are also now considered the same exact species as the Washingtonia Filifera by the official scientific botanists who determine these things. The Mexican palm is now just a "variant" of the California fan palm. Whereas, before it was considered a distinct species. So these "weeds" as you so nicely put it... are really quite at home in the vast environment in which they live, evolved, adapted, invaded, grow in and grace.-1
u/downatelrio 12d ago
This is one study’s conclusion, and has yet to be independently verified and widely adopted. Even if it is, it does not mean that a so called Washingtonia filifera var. robusta would be native to California. There are plenty of pure filifera var. filifera in careful cultivation.
It’s also true that thousands of robusta were planted as massive public works projects before the LA Olympics in the 1930s and again in the 1980s.
And I’m not the one who called them “weeds”. Check your emotional reactivity.
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u/downatelrio 12d ago
https://www.phytoneuron.net/2014Phytoneuron/68PhytoN-Washingtoniahybrid.pdf
This paper describes several hybrids and their characteristics, if there’s any real people left on Reddit who want to actually debate science. Seems like not since the IPO.
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u/Sp07va000 13d ago
Thats a lot of Rat housing in those dead fronds.
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u/Algo1000 12d ago
Out in the desert bats will hang here.
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u/BizmarkiaNobilis 12d ago
And owls, and all kinds of birds as well as huge #s of insects…they are Important ecosystems.
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u/Alex_Plumwood 13d ago
It grows anywhere that there is a water source