i96Bl SMITH: LIVISTONA 27 cottEcroR'scHolcE A Very Special Livistona

Your favorite palm? Perhaps you passedup the opportunity to gain notori- know which one it is, and why it is, with- ety as a sort of JamesJoyce of the palm out pausingto give it a moment'sconsid- world, whosegibberish would be highly eration. Seeminglyit should be very easy respectedbecause nobody could under- to namethat superlativepalm and also to stand it. dashoff a few telling sentencesfor publi- I had to make a choiceand stop floun- cation, if requested,to a total o{ about dering around, so I decided to confine five hundred words. But when such a it to the palrns that are growing on my requestwas made of me just recently, I own grounds. I would look at them all was at first pretty well perplexed and again, for about the billionth time, but very much surprised to find out there more objectively than ever before, and would be some difficulty in making a then make a decisivechoice. This I pro- choice. All God's chillun got wings, ceededto do, and it seemedto me that and there'sthe rub. The difficulty stems one standsout abovethe crowd of about from admiring too many palms and not a thousand competitors here and is by actively disliking any of them. all odds, if not the prettiest or most Any question about a choice, I had elegant,the most majesticin appearance. thought, could be resolved readily This majestyof a palm belongsLo the enoughby electingthe Phoenix rupicoln, gews Liaistona, though its species is often called the handsomestspecies of uncertain. It resemblesmost nearly ,L. its genus; or the Licuala grand,is,a little chinensiswhen comparedwith examples honey of a palm; or the lubaea chilensis, of all sevenspecies growing in the same a honey palm but massive,not little; or garden,but there are severaldifferences the Roystonea oleracea, Ihe Rhyticocos from the palm I take to be good L. chi- dtnard) the CyrtostachysLakka, or David nensis. A taxonomistmight considerthe Fairchild's special love, the Pigaletta di{ferences not significant enough to filaris; or any other chosen from an warrant separatespecific status for my elegantinfinitude. Upon examining the favorite, but it does differ from L. chi- matter,however, it was clear it would not nensis most noticeably in these partic- be easy to find compelling reasonsfor ulars: I) it grows more than twice as putting onepalm aboveall the others. Be- fast; 2) there is, on the upper surfaceof sidesit would hardly be cricket to single the leaf blades, a sheenor glint that is out a palm I had never so much as in wide contrast with the dull green leaf glimpsed unless in an illustration-an surfaces noted in L. chinensis'"3) the Andean wax palm, for example,perhaps petioles are armed with heavier and towering to nearly two hundred feet. Of longer lessrecurved spinesthan those of coursethere was the temptation to buck L. chinensis,but this factor is not de- .the trend and be different by naming the pendablebecause the petiolar armature lowly, and usually scrubby,saw palmetto is not always constanteven in the same (.Serenoarepens), or something even palm; 4) it first blooms at about half less distinguished, the Sabal Etonia, lhe age usually observedin L. chinensis; which will never win a beauty contest. 5) it is much more retentive of live With some reluctance. however. I leavesthan L, chinensisis, at leastin this PRINCIPES tVol. 12

This Liuistona species holds over one hundred unblemished, vivid green leaves. To measure its great size, note the man in the right {oreground. l96Bl SMITH: LIVISTONA 29 garden, where fifteen of the latter rang- Perhaps I should mention, before I ing in age from ten to about forty years forget it, whence came my palm, its may be observed in various stages of height and its age. It is now about four- growth, and this greater retention o{ teen years old. Ten years ago a few {oliage is evident at once, even though young palms of several different kinds L. chinensis retains more live foliage, had overgrown a small test-areain the when favorably situated,than most other lowland marl at the Fairchild Tropical coryphoidpalms. Garden, and this phenomenal plant of My favorite is clothed at presentwith mine, then consisting chiefly of roots over one hundred unblemished vivid and four-foot leaves,was dug and extri- green leaves,to within a few feet of the catedfrom the tangle,placed on the floor ground. The lowest and oldest o{ these of my car and transported to its new still green leaveshave been on the palm home,where it was replantedand at once since1964 and 1965,quite unchangedby began to flourish. It is now just over the frosts, freezes,droughts and wind- twenty-three feet tall to the top of its storms of recent years. It would still be topmost leaf, a fact easily determinedby clothed quite to the ground if the lowest using a ruler to relate the height of the leaveshad not been pruned away before palm in the illustration to the known they had becomeeven a little unsightly. height of the man standingnear its base. It is this unexampledmass of vivid green Apparently Liuistona, a genus said to foliage that awes the beholder and gives consist of some twenty species,has not the palm its majestical appearance. yet been exhaustivelystudied. The spe- Added to this is the beauty of the leaf ciesare widely dispersedin regionsas far blades with the glint of sunshine or aDart as central Australia and south moonlight upon them, though brilliant central China" as also in Malaya, New even when shaded; and the fountain Guinea and the Philippines,and presum- effect o{ the drooping leaf segments. ably good herbarium specimensof every This effect is heightened by the sheen one do not exist. so readily apparentin the accompanying If a botanisthad comparedthe flowers illustration, but no mere black-and-white of my palm with those of good L. chi- photograph can really convey the strik- nensis,I daresay he would have found ing appearanceof the green foliage. no differences; but up till now, this Clearly enough,as the illustration sug- would have been impossible, for the oofoun- gests,my favorite is one of the palm had not reached bearing age. 'Iwo tain palms," a sobriquet usually applied days ago, however,or precisely on to Liaistona chinensis, yet perhaps quite January 7 of this year, I was amazedto as apt for some of the other species. It {ind that it had suddenly come of age. may be an unnamed variety of L. chi- I had gone out to check the number of nensisoor a form of it not different leaves for this page in my script, and enough to give it varietal rank. Or it saw, while peering upward through the may be the hybrid product ot, say, L. foliage, that seven long spadices had chinensis and L. australis; but I hasten emergedand the inflorescenceswere al- to pdd this would seem to me farfetched ready in full bloom. In January, mind, and quite unlikely to say the best of it, when at this latitude one often shivers for I don't know if these palms cross, and sometimeswonders if. after all- it and moreover have no doubt, without might not be well to sharpen that long any assuranceto the contrary, that any- disusedpair of ice skates. But not this one elseknows. season,for the local weatherhas beenab' 30 PRINCIPES lVol. 12 normally warm so far and not much To have a favorite palm at all there different from a tropical winter, with has to be something outstanding about avocados, citrus, bananas, and many it. My palm seemsto me overwhelm- other plants blooming before their time. ingly beautiful, but if the next hard This prompted an inspection o{ all the freezewould turn it into an eyesoreand other livistonas, of whatever specieson perhaps kill it, I would not knowingly thesegrounds. Not one spadix is visibly choose it as a favorite to be preferred emerging as yet {rom any of a dozen or above all other favorites. Luckily my so palms of flowering age, with the sole palm is'possessedof virtues more solid exception of that daring performer, than the accidentof beauty. It is tolerant which as I have already said, is in full of cold, drought and windstorm, and bloom. Could this be significant of a requires no specialcare of any kind. It specific difference? I cannot say, and is mani{estly happy to be where it is, must remain in this respectan agnostic, and seems wholly indifferent about a word invented by Thomas Henry whether anybody else besidesme loves Huxley from the Greek agnostos) mear'- it or not. I should hope, though, that ttnot ing "unknown" or to know." So I everybody would. am an I-don't-knowerabout this as about all elsehaving to do with taxonomy. Dnnr Srrtrn

THEEDITOR'S CORNER sent to Warren J. Dolby, Contra Costa College, San Pablo, California 94806. Only through the involvementof every member of the Palm Society can Pnrn- w.J.D. clpns fulfill its role as the leading journal o{ the world of palms. We would The Editor regrets the latenessof the like every member to considerhimself a current issue which is due in part to reporter on the staff of this publication. a change in printing arrangements,in The section we entitle PALM BRIEFS, part to pressures of too many other for example,should be a lively and inter- duties which must take priority. For esting part of Pnrncrpns,a potpourri of thosereaders who becomeimpatient (in- news and observationsabout palms. We cluding the Editorst. let it bL said thaL need your ideas, your newspaper clip- The Palm Society is not the only one pings and photos, your letters to the whosejournal is often delayed. Editing editors or to the membership. All com- o{ society journals frequently (as with munications from you are solicited and Pnnqclpns) is an extracurricular labor welcomed. Send technical communica- of love and love sometimeshas to give tions to Dr. Harold Moore, Bailey way when keeping up with professional Hortorium, Mann Library, Cornell Uni- obligationsrequires up to {ourteenhours versity, Ithaca, New York 14850. Non- a day. technical materialsand letters should be H.E.M.