Hawaii:
- Acanthophoenix rubra 1.jpg (178.02 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
- Acanthophoenix rubras.jpg (188.7 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
- Acanthophoenix rubra crown.jpg (193.26 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
Southern California:
- Acanthophoenix rubra Ha.jpg (166.33 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
- Acanthophoenix rubra leaves.jpg (119.27 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
- Acanthophoenix rubra trunk.jpg (155.63 KiB) Viewed 9999 times
One of at least three species of Acanthophoenix, most notable due to their first place in the alphabetic list of palms, all found on a few island in the Indian Ocean. Fortunately this is a pretty commonly grown palm in several of the Hawaiian botanical gardens so I have had the luck of being able to see and photograph some. It is not a great palm for southern California unless you live in the right microclimate (eg. protected San Diego County), though Acanthophoenix crinita, the less colorful cousin, is actually a very good palm for many areas of southern California. This is one of many spiny palms (many which also start with 'A')- a solitary trunked species with a nice, long, smooth (though often spiny) crownshaft of rust coloration. Attractive 'typically' tropical looking palm with arching leaves and narrow, evenly and closely spaced long leaflets and a fairly prominently ringed trunk. It's a smaller palm with trunks only about 4"-6" in diameter, and growing up to 60' (never seen one even 1/4 that tall, though) on the islands of Mauritius and Renunion. Young plants are particularly colorful showing a lot of red and are very spiny. Mature plants are far less spiny.