Download - The European Palm Society

Completely Hardyby Rev. Geoffrey F. SquireOne winter afternoon about three years ago,I was driving through a suburb of Torquay whenthe light on a set of temporary traffic lightschanged to red. As I waited there I glancedaround at the houses and was amazed to see whatappeared to be a tall Rhopalostylis sapida growingin the corner of the walls of a large house andjust visible above the tall boundary walls.I had heard that one or two of these used togrow in the area but were killed by anexceptionally cold night in February 1987, so Iwas quite excited about this find, and resolved toreturn again on a brighter day with a camera tophotograph some for possible publication inChamaerops.Early the following spring I was in the areaon a bright afternoon, and set off walking around,camera in hand, to try to relocate the palm. Afterwalking around the area for about an hourwithout finding it, I gave up. Over the monthsfollowing I made two more attempts, but withno luck. Then, a few weeks ago, I was driving aminibus through the area and suddenly spottedit. I realized that I needed the raised seat of theminibus to see it over the high garden walls.The whole thing was made of plastic with asectional screw-together trunk, and was once usedby the woman's husband for a series of tradeexhibitions in relation to New Zealand.At a recent local fair I saw 3/4m high plastic"Fan Palms" (very good copies of smallTrachycarpus) for sale in plastic pots. At that samefair I also saw a stall selling similarly sized butreal live "Garden Palms," which were not theincorrectly named "Westcountry Palms,"Cordyline australis, but Phoenix canariensis.With the ability to reproduce, in plastic andwith an amazing degree of accuracy, things likeleaves, flowers, and palms, I suppose that it isonly a matter of time before plastic coconut palmsare seen along the seafront of some East-coastresort or amusement park. I am sure that thereaders of Chamaerops, however, will considerthe possibility of some of those Phoenixcanariensis growing to maturity somewhere inNorth Devon to be much more exciting.I parked around the corner and returned,with my camera, to the house. I rang the frontdoor bell to explain my interest in the palm to avery pleasant woman who seemed to find myinterest amusing. She took me around the corner,and there it was. It stood about 5m, but was of asomewhat different species than I anticipated, onethat should be completely hardy in all regionssouth of the Arctic Circle.It was Rhopalostylis sapida, variety "Plastica,"and was "growing" in a solid block of concrete!page 16