This thin trunked, medium sized palm comes from New Caledonia where it lives in habitat below overhead tree canopy. It is very slow growing. It has a trunk diameter, at maturity, of about three inches. It has a cream colored crown shaft and a sparse crown of five to six leaves. It is often seen “leaning” for light among competing plants. For a nursery, producing a nice 5g plant takes about five years. For this reason, few nurseries grow this species. Planted in the garden, growth rate picks up a bit but is still slow. Newly emerging leaves are often red in color. If you are in a drier climate, this species would definitely take filtered light. Since the trunk is small and the canopy is medium sized at most, it is a good species to “sneak into that small, filtered light area”. Cold tolerance is into the low twenties, F. I’ve known this species to grow in the San Francisco Bay area.
We have a very limited supply of Actinokentia. Of note, this is a monotypic genus with only one species in the genus. Shown here is one of our 2g plants and photos from habitat and domestic plants. Note the long slender crown shaft and how plants don’t carry very many leaves. We’ve been selling this species for over 20 years and typically have one or two for sale. Shown below is the 2g size that we’re putting on Special.
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