Butia or Hybrid ?

[ScotTi]

What are your thoughts ? I always assume these are just Butia and rid them from the Hybrids.

 

[MattyB]

How can you tell if it's a hybrid? More purple?

 

[Dypsisdean]

Sorry,

I'm a little out of the loop on this one. I don't think I have seen one Butia ever in Hawaii.

 

[palmnerd]

Not that I know off the cuff what a pure baby Butia c. would look like but these look really green and loose leafed (as opposed to rigid and blue) to me so maybe there is a queen lurking in there.
At the risk of overcomplicating this Scott. If the plants in the photos were started by you from seed, then you made this seed from Syagrus pollen altogether with the odd chance of Butia selfing mixed in the lot?
Maybe you could post a pic. of a true hybrid of near the same age for comparison.
From what I know of f1 hybrids the phenotypic expression is usually fairly uniform, so how far of a deviation are these from the known butiagrus?
I don't know if this helps or if it just muddies it up.

 

[ScotTi]

How can you tell if it's a hybrid? More purple?

Matty, When I first started on my Butiagrus quest every thing I read and was told said the leaf base will always be green. I learned from my experience that is not the case. I see more purple/brown leaf bases than green, so I do not use that for identification. The hybrids from the Butia that most of my hybrids are raised are natural crosses. I usually get 85% hybrids, but I have always discarded (assuming they were plain Butias) the plants that look like this one. Scott

 

[ScotTi]

Not that I know off the cuff what a pure baby Butia c. would look like but these look really green and loose leafed (as opposed to rigid and blue) to me so maybe there is a queen lurking in there.
At the risk of overcomplicating this Scott. If the plants in the photos were started by you from seed, then you made this seed from Syagrus pollen altogether with the odd chance of Butia selfing mixed in the lot?
Maybe you could post a pic. of a true hybrid of near the same age for comparison.
From what I know of f1 hybrids the phenotypic expression is usually fairly uniform, so how far of a deviation are these from the known butiagrus?
I don't know if this helps or if it just muddies it up.

Here is a picture of the mother Butia.

 

[palmnerd]

I'll rephrase my question, You mentioned to Matty that you usually get "85%" hybrids in your cross. The remaining 15% are pure Butia? Or are they only expressing like butia? When you prep the mother Butia have you fully emasculated the staminate flowers, or are there other male flowers appearing on the plant while you are crossing the receptive female. I am just trying to figure out how you could still be getting pure Butia in the mix when you are pollinating with Syagrus pollen.
When I cross Syagrus x Syagrus from different species, there are usually no other male flowers in anthesis on the mother plant when I cross. It seems Butia follows the same practice of only one flowering at a time on an individual plant. Maybe I'm wrong.
I still think if you could snap a picture of one of your hybrids and put it next to the ones in question maybe we could see differences.
I just saw the mother Butia picture, she's a good looking plant!

 

[ScotTi]

I'll rephrase my question, You mentioned to Matty that you usually get "85%" hybrids in your cross. The remaining 15% are pure Butia? Or are they only expressing like butia? When you prep the mother Butia have you fully emasculated the staminate flowers, or are there other male flowers appearing on the plant while you are crossing the receptive female. I am just trying to figure out how you could still be getting pure Butia in the mix when you are pollinating with Syagrus pollen.
When I cross Syagrus x Syagrus from different species, there are usually no other male flowers in anthesis on the mother plant when I cross. It seems Butia follows the same practice of only one flowering at a time on an individual plant. Maybe I'm wrong.
I still think if you could snap a picture of one of your hybrids and put it next to the ones in question maybe we could see differences.
I just saw the mother Butia picture, she's a good looking plant!

These are natural crosses, the male flowers are gone from this Butia about a week before the female flowers are ready.I have always trashed the ones that look like the one pictured and grow on the other 85% and those have turned out to be hybrids. I wil get pictures this weekend.

 

[palmnerd]

....And here's another thought Scott. I just saw your picture of your A. arenaria. Have you thought about crossing it with the Butia. It's probably not possible but maybe it's worth a try. I have tried several times to cross A. arenaria with my Syagrus coronata, to no avail. The seeds abort after a month or so. It would be great to get a hybrid of the two. There was an article a few years back in Palms, about a guy in California that had crossed Lytocaryum w. with S. romanzofiana. I would love to get a hold of one of those! As a matter of fact if anyone who reads this knows where to get one let me know please.

 

[marcel]

Hi palmnerd,
I bought one and a half year ago a Butia x Parajubaea from a guy in California. I know that he makes lots of different hybrids. It could be the same guy you've read about.
His name is Patrick Schafer.
You can find his e-mail address and his phone number in the last post of PalmguyWC in this link:
http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=17249&pid=291154&mode=threaded&start=#entry291154

Marcel

 

[palmnerd]

Thank you very much for the useful link Marcel. I used to post on palmtalk years ago but quickly lost interest for a couple reasons. None the less I will re-register if its necessary to find out if this guy is the one with the hybrids I seek. I am also going to go through some on-line back issues of Palms to find the name of the guy. A lot of my old back copies were lost during our hurricanes a few years back. Hence the beauty of on line back issues!

 

[ScotTi]

....And here's another thought Scott. I just saw your picture of your A. arenaria. Have you thought about crossing it with the Butia. It's probably not possible but maybe it's worth a try. I have tried several times to cross A. arenaria with my Syagrus coronata, to no avail. The seeds abort after a month or so. It would be great to get a hybrid of the two. There was an article a few years back in Palms, about a guy in California that had crossed Lytocaryum w. with S. romanzofiana. I would love to get a hold of one of those! As a matter of fact if anyone who reads this knows where to get one let me know please.

I have been told it is possible, and will give it a try if it ever flowers

 

[Dypsisdean]

Justin,

The guy you are thinking of is Bill Dickenson. The palm has been named "Lytoagrus dickensonii." He is in SoCal and I could dig up his number is you PM me. You may be able to Google him and come across it. He is still very active in the palm scene. He would know where to get one. He is a very friendly and helpful guy.

I think I even have a few pics around. I'll try and dig them up.

 

[palmnerd]

Dean it's funny you mention Bill, I came here to post my findings in a past issue of Palms Vol. 49 (3) Sept. '05. Don Hodel published a great article on Bill's creation. I am amazed this hasn't filtered into retail outlets. Perhaps he has chosen not to release the hybrid for sale. I will sniff around and see what is up with this. And if you can get contact info that would be great. I tried growing Lytocaryum about eight years ago, but it isn't much into our climate or soil (?). So having a hybrid would be great. Thank you for giving me the name none the less!
And while on the subject of hybrids and the Journal Palms, For Scott I found a back article in vol. 50 (3) Sept. '06, by Ed Brown. It is titled Trials with Cocosoid hybrids in Jacksonville Fl.. If your familiar with this Scott, forgive me, but it seems to offer some good insight into things being discussed in this thread. After I submit this post I am going to go sit and read it again. Anyone interested can access the articles online at the IPS site in the "members area".

 

[ScotTi]

Justin, Yes I am familiar with that article. Ed suggested to me he thought the Butia itself is a hybrid with Jubaea. I think he was going by the extra stamens found on the flowers. He also mentioned that the Butia/Jubaea hybrids contain hooks on the leaves. Also suggested by him was that the palm is self-sterile, and it is why it produces so many of the hybrid offspring. That is the reason I am growing this one on to see what happens. Flowering season for this Butia is only for a couple months of the year, my other Butia flowers year round. But to add to the mystery, I gave one of the Butia offspring that looked like a Butia to a friend. The palm is 10 years old and to the top of the leaves is a little less than 2' tall and shows no spines. I gave up on the mystery of the Butia and enjoy it for what it is. Scott

 

[ScotTi]

The first pic is the palm beside a larger Butiagrus. The second pic is the two offspring of ButiaxButiagrus (cross was done very carefully to avoid unwanted pollination) looking nothing alike each other. Pollen was used from two diffrent Butiagrus so that may explain the diffrent look. Picture 3 is my guess at this stage. The one in the purple color pot on the Butia side is a toss up to me at this stage, leaves look like the hybrid but the trunk looks like Butia.

 

[palmnerd]

As I mentioned in one of my first posts on this thread, I am not good with pure Butia seedlings. I have one paraguayensis and that's it. With that said I can see a difference in pic 1, in some of the leaf from and the petioles seem more recurved or relaxed in the known Butiagrus. I hope someone with more Butia savvy will chime in to help. I see you've recruited the hounds to help solve this matter.
As an aside Scott, There is a recent post in one of our local palm forums in the for sale section. They were asking a handsome sum for liners of the Butiagrus. I wasn't aware they fetched such a price. I got mine (for $20) from friends on a shopping trip in a field of 3 gallon Butias in south Florida. The hybrids; I guess, stick out in such situations. Too bad I wasn't on that buying trip it may have helped me to ID the above palms!

 

[ScotTi]

How can you tell if it's a hybrid? More purple?

Matty, Red or green is the normal color at this size stage on the hybrids, red will turn purple/black later and the green remain green. Scott

 

[Eriksji]

All of our Butyagrus look different due to the many parent palms we pull the pollen from.