This cultivated palm was photographed in Huntington Botanical Gardens a couple summers ago.
Native to Kohala Mountain of the Big Island of Hawai'i, less than a thousand individual wild plants of Pritchardia lanigera are thought to exist. The IUCN Red List, accordingly, identifies it as endangered (ignore the error of Kohala being on O'ahu). Numbers of plants for this species are difficult to determine, as it grows on "precipitous" valley slopes. Growing to a height of 6m, (I imagine) it is not easy to spot via an aerial census, as I presume it isn't a part of the forest canopy.
The scientific name for the genus honours William T. Pritchard, 19th century British consul in the Fiji Islands, while the epithet lanigera means "woolly" (demonstrated in the photograph). Commonly, it is known as lo'ulu.
Arkive.org has a few images of Pritchardia lanigera. A description of the species is available from the Smithsonian Institution: Pritchardia lanigera.
Wow man, when you scroll up and down it appears to be moving!
Whee! It does kind of appear to be waving in the wind if you do that! I met a few other plants in Hawaii that were either extremely rare or had been brought back from the brink of extinction. Hooray for the botanists who navigate those slopes.
This posting seems to be alive as it displays itself on my screen. Excellent. Thank you.
Gosh, it's pretty. It would make a terrific huge wall poster!
feels like, and you all sound like, the 60's to me!
Interesting that only an estimated 1000 trees are known to exist, yet its current protection status is none. -Millet (1,102-)
fine picture daniel thank you
google image has a good number of photos
and the book search was interesting
i enjoyed the pages from a book
1865 by the time a book was written 1913
the population was in trouble wild pigs etc
cold here in florida some of the exotics
brought in to the country will not survive
it does get cold here bon jour
I don't think it's pretty at all. Too green, dull and bland. It looks like some old raggedy wall paper that was in an old house I use to live in.
yo...yankee...
beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
sorry about your raggety old wallpaper....
not....!
Sounds like the 60s! Quin, you say that like it's a bad thing...!