Trachycarpus fortunei

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Trachycarpus fortunei, also known as the Chusan palm,<ref name="bean4">Bean, W. J. (1980). Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles, 8th ed., vol. 4. John Murray. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="rhs">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chinese windmill palm,<ref>Template:PLANTS</ref> or simply the Windmill palm,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is a species of hardy evergreen palm tree in the family Arecaceae, native to parts of China, Japan, Myanmar, and India.

DescriptionEdit

Growing to Template:Convert tall, Trachycarpus fortunei is a single-stemmed fan palm. The diameter of the trunk is up to Template:Convert. Its texture is very rough, with the persistent leaf bases clasping the stem as layers of coarse dark grey-brown fibrous material. The leaves have long petioles which are bare except for two rows of small spines, terminating in a rounded fan of numerous leaflets. Each leaf is Template:Convert long, with the petiole Template:Convert long, and the leaflets up to Template:Convert long. It is a somewhat variable plant, especially as regards its general appearance; and some specimens are to be seen with leaf segments having straight and others having drooping tips.<ref name="Huxley-Griffiths-1992">Template:Cite book 3: 443–448, 4: 491.</ref>

File:Fleurs Trachycarpus fortunei.jpg

Trachycarpus fortunei flowers

The flowers are yellow (male) and greenish (female), about Template:Convert across, borne in large branched panicles up to Template:Convert long in spring; it is dioecious, with male and female flowers produced on separate trees. The fruit is a yellow to blue-black, reniform (kidney-shaped) drupe Template:Convert long, ripening in mid-autumn.<ref name=foc/><ref name=rhs/>

Distribution and habitatEdit

This plant has been cultivated in China and Japan for thousands of years. This makes tracking its natural range difficult. It is believed to originate in central China (Hubei southwards), southern Japan (Kyushu), south to northern Myanmar and northern India, growing at altitudes of Template:Convert.<ref name=usda/><ref name=foc>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=kew>WCSP, World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: Trachycarpus fortunei</ref>

Trachycarpus fortunei is one of the hardiest palms. It tolerates cool, moist summers as well as cold winters, as it grows at much higher altitudes than other species, up to Template:Convert in the mountains of southern China.<ref name=foc/> However, it is not the northernmost naturally occurring palm in the world, as European fan palm (Chamaerops humilis) grows further north in the Mediterranean.<ref name=rhs/>

UsesEdit

Trachycarpus fortunei has been cultivated in China and Japan for thousands of years, for its coarse but very strong leaf sheath fibre, used for making rope, sacks, and other coarse cloth where great strength is important. The extent of this cultivation means that the exact natural range of the species is uncertain.<ref name=foc/><ref name=rhs/>

CultivationEdit

Trachycarpus fortunei is cultivated as a trunking palm in gardens and parks throughout the world in warm temperate and subtropical climates. Its tolerance of cool summers and cold winters makes it valued by palm enthusiasts, landscape designers and gardeners. It is grown successfully in cool climates such as the UK, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, coastal Poland as well as southern and western Germany. In the UK it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.<ref name="rhs"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Due to its widespread use as an ornamental plant, the palm has become naturalised in southern regions of Switzerland, and has become an invasive species of concern.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In North America, mature specimens can be found growing in the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Upper South, and Mid-Atlantic states. They can found growing along the West Coast from California north to coastal southwestern British Columbia, and along the East Coast from northern Florida to coastal Connecticut. Lower tolerance limits of Template:Convert are commonly cited for mature plants.<ref name="bean4"/> Young plants are less hardy, and can be damaged by only Template:Convert. Lowest cold tolerance of well documented specimans include in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which has survived a low temperature of -27.5 °C.<ref name="c729">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Petrova-Vladimirov-2018">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Sokolov-et-al-2016">Template:Cite journal</ref>

The cultivar group Trachycarpus fortunei 'Wagnerianus' is a small-leafed semi-dwarf variant of the species selected in cultivation in China and Japan. It differs in rarely growing to more than Template:Convert tall, with leaflets less than Template:Cvt long; the short stature and small leaves give it greater tolerance of wind exposure.<ref name=rhs/> It has often been treated as a separate species T. wagnerianus in popular works, but is now included within T. fortunei.<ref name=kew/><ref name=foc/><ref name=usda/>

CuisineEdit

The young flower buds are cooked and eaten in a variety of ways.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

NomenclatureEdit

The species was brought from Japan (Dejima) to Europe by the German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold in 1830. The common name refers to Chusan Island (now Zhoushan Island), where Robert Fortune first saw cultivated specimens. In 1849, Fortune smuggled plants from China to the Kew Horticultural Gardens and the Royal garden of Prince Albert of the United Kingdom.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was later named Trachycarpus fortunei, after him. It was first described by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius in 1850 in his Historia Naturalis Palmarum but under the illegitimate name of Chamaerops excelsa.

The names Chamaerops excelsus and Trachycarpus excelsus have occasionally been misapplied to Trachycarpus fortunei; these are correctly synonyms of Rhapis excelsa, with the confusion arising due to a misunderstanding of Japanese vernacular names.<ref name=bean4/>

GalleryEdit

Vancouver palms englishbay.jpg

In English Bay, Vancouver, Canada
Palmtree solomons.jpg

In Solomons Island, Maryland, US
Palmen Duesseldorf 083.jpg

In Düsseldorf, Germany
Arecaceae-zhejiang2005-2.JPG

In Zhuji, China
Snow on Trachycarpus fortunei.JPG

In Northern Ireland
Airandspace trachycarpus.jpg

In Washington, D.C., US

ReferencesEdit

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