The palm is native to the Canary islands off N.W. Africa.
It hybridises easily with other Phoenix species especially P. roebelenii.
The solitary evergreen palms have an unbranched stem (trunk).
Depending on their age they can be seen here up to 15 or 20 m high.
Old palms have massive trunks over 1 m across.
The base can be even wider and it may have adventitious roots.
The rounded crown, up to 9 m across has young erect and old arching or pendant fronds.
Up to 6 m long the many spirally arranged fronds (leaves) are densely packed.
Mature leaves have a petiole nearly 0.5 m long.
Wide petiole bases leave diamond-shaped scars on the trunk.
The horizontal diamonds are up to 30 cm wide.
There is an open sheath but no crown shaft.
The leaf midrib (rachis) has 100 or more pairs of leaflets (pinnae).
The dark green linear pinnae are longest in the middle of the blade.
These can be over 50 cm long and are under 3.5 cm wide when flattened.
Basal leaflets and the single terminal one are around half that length.
Leaflets are mostly in 1 plane but in places can be in slightly more than one.
The rigid leaflets are folded up lengthwise – induplicate or ‘V’ shaped.
They have a prominent midrib and taper to a sharp point.
Lower leaflets remain intact but most split down the midrib.
Pinnae at the base of the blade are modified into sharp spines.
The green then yellow spines increase in length over time.
Up to 20 cm long they point in all directions.
Male and female flowers are on separate palms.
Axillary inflorescences are a panicle with a flattened peduncle and midrib.
Young inflorescences are protected by a bract (prophyll) 50 to 80 cm long.
Shaped like a flat-bottomed boat it has 2 keels runing down it.
The prophylls split lengthwise as the inflorescences mature.
There are no peduncular bracts.
The peduncle continues as the around 50 cm long midrib.
Pendulous green then orange spikes off the midrib usually have no basal bract.
Almost all the around 30 cm long spikes (rachillae) are in groups of up to 10.
Each spike has around 65 to 70 densely packed roughly alternate flowers.
Flowers, directly attached to the spike have a tiny basal bracteole.
Male inflorescences, on a flattened peduncle around 60 cm long are smaller than the females.
The around 3 mm long pale cream to white calyx has a basal tube with 3 lobes.
The 3 free thick non-overlapping creamy-white petals are around 1 cm long.
The 6 stamens have anthers directly attached to the petal bases.
The 3 mm long pale cream basifixed anthers open sideways through long slits.
There is no pistillode or 3 aborted carpels under 1 mm high.
Erect then pendulous female inflorescences have a peduncle around 1 m long.
The midrib, a few cms long has pendulous orange side spikes up to 60 cm long.
Yellow to white female flowers, 3.5 mm across are on the lower half of the rachillae.
The 4.5 mm green calyx has a basal tube with 3 lobes with pointed tips.
The 3 overlapping whitish petals, around 6 mm long have a thin edge.
The 6 free staminodes are around 0.5 mm high.
The 3 free carpels form an ovary with 3 locules each with 1 ovule.
Around 3 mm long it has 3 coiled styles around 1 mm long.
The ovoid green then orange or reddish fruit are 2 cm long by 1 cm wide.
Sepals, petals and stigma remnants remain on the fruit.
Fruit have a thin fleshy layer with fibres around the single grooved seed.
At this stage the peduncle, rachillae and fruit are a bright orange.
J.F.
