An ignored fact about Trachycarpus princeps

[garryendson]

Trachycaprus princeps is famous for the uniquely white undersides of leaves. However less attention is paid to the white powder presence on the upper leaf surface and petioles which make them look bluish.
This is because even some real princeps we see on the internet are not really blue,more bit of like a green palm with only white backs. and in some cases, even the undersides ares just blue or gray, not so sharply white.

Actually, T.princeps is a blue palm with white powder to the leaf undersides ,uppersides and petioles. My several princeps grown in the ground and pot out of seeds from the stone gate demonstrate how blue white they could be at both sides.
Though a blue T.princeps with white powder at upperside could be far more interesting and preferable than a green one with only white underside which is not rare to see , it is still mysterious and difficult to find out what the main reasons are behind the variations.
Maybe someone could contribute his growing experience as to shed light on this.

[wsnbm]

I am looking forward to read any reaction to this topic.
There is many information to gain on the Trachycarpus Princeps.

At this moment the sellers inform you, that there is a green version and a silver version of the Princeps, but on your pictures it is clearly that you have the green/silver version of the Princeps

What makes the plant silver or green?

[griphuz]

Ja misschien heeft dat toch gewoon met groeiomstandigheden zoals klimaat en bodemgesteldheid te maken, moeilijk achter te komen lijkt me.
Groetjes,
Remko.

[KevinC]

Hey garry

Nice pictures. I have never seen a princeps like yours before.
The princeps palms wich I have seen are only white/silver at the underside of the leaves, not on the uppersides.

I have 16 T. princeps palms and none of them have the white powder on the upperside of the leaves.
I'll take pictures today.

And, indeed. There are a lot of variations... When you see 100 T. forunei palms together they all look different. I sometimes even discover T. fortunei's with white powder on the underside of the leaves...But it's not so visible as the whithe powder on T. princeps leaves.

The green princeps doesn't exist... This is the Trachycarpus sp. Nova
There are 2 species of princeps, the Trachycarpus princeps and the Trachycarpus princeps 'Cultivated'.
the 'Cultivated' princeps grows much bigger leaves than the normal princeps.

Greetings

[KevinC]

Here some pictures of my princeps palms:

I've bought these plants a few weeks ago. They probably come out of a greenhouse:




Not very white yet:


Look at the difference between the left and the right plant. (Shape of the leafs).


Some bigger plants, the 4 plants ont he left are wet, the right ones not because they came out of the greenhouse. Those plants start to turn grey ont he upperside of the leafs aswel. But not as clear as your plants Garry.:






My 2 oldest plants.
One in a container in the shade, the upper leafsides are completely green:






Palm with the same age, planted in the ground this spring on a sunny, warm and dry place. It makes very small leafs but they are very grey on the underside:


This is an example of a Trachycarpus princeps green form.. (Trachycarpus sp. Nova)
I don't know why people sometimes call it princeps green.
It's the most fast growing Trachycarpus specie:


This should be a normal Trachycarpus fortunei palm... but the underside of the leafs is quite grey I think.


Greetings
Kevin

[kristof p]

all my fortunei palms have a grey/blueish and sometimes whitish wax on the undersides of the leaves. i dont know why this is. maby something in the ground at my place? what i do see is that for some reason the whiteness of the leaves (or the amount of wax) seems to change with the seasons here??? i also notice that when they grow bigger they seem to lose the wax a little. maybe smaller plants produce more of the wax for protection against the cold or the hot sun and when they grow bigger they dont need that anymore???...i do have a few fortuneis that never see the sun (grown underneath some evergreen plants) and those are deep green above and on the undersides!

here's one with white undersides. i took the pictures in the fading light. one with a flash (very white undersides) another one without flash to show you the real colour . these or from last year, the last year this one produced this kind of white leaves. it is a very fast an fat growing Trachycarpus with very stiff leafes(almost like wagnerianus) on long petioles. it has an avarage of 43 leaflets on a leaf more than any other fortunei i grow. i think it is a naini tal or a cross with wagnerianus??? it has grown very fast again this year and the leaves grown from early summer this year untill now dont have this amount of wax anymore.

wmf.JPG (173.25 KiB) 7130 keer bekeken

wzf.JPG (118.21 KiB) 7130 keer bekeken

here are two pics of the same palm a few days ago....

big1.JPG (267.52 KiB) 7130 keer bekeken

big2.JPG (297.75 KiB) 7130 keer bekeken

[francois eijkhout]

Prachtig Cristoph baas boven baas succes groeten Francois

[garryendson]

Kristof,
Thanks for sharing your observation on white powder presence on trachycaprus.You are one of the highlights to provoke my thoughts as always.
What nice palms you are growing.Yes,T.fortunei also have bluish stuff to the undersides of leaves and few have silver backs as well, but nowhere near that of T.princeps in term of the density of the white powder. Another interesting thing is that bigger seedlings of manipur and people are showing on the web are just blue not so apparent as princeps .I am quite curious about what is behind this since I saw the adult palms also have white backs on the photos.
Normally T.fortunei in the shady location have deep green at both sides however T.princeps could still have silver backs even in the shade and sometimes even blue at upper leaf surface if the shade is not too heavy.That makes me think if they need certain nutrition in the soil as to form the white powder presence. Some say PH of the soil may plays a part in this process which is unknown.I am trying to find out what causes the coloration variation.

maybe smaller plants produce more of the wax for protection against the cold or the hot sun and when they grow bigger they dont need that anymore???.

An interesting observation on T.fortunei. But what I saw the adult princeps in the habitat are equally as white as or more apparently whiter than the cultivated seedlings people are growing. Maybe they have a different mechanism than other trachycarpus.

[garryendson]

Kevin,
But as I noticed, few of mine started as blue since leaf splitting stage and few initially stayed greenish before finally developing into blue silver with time on the 5th or 6th dividing leaf.
In general when older,I observed so far most of the several princeps growing in the ground and pot display bluish silver coloration more or less at both sides as opposed to the green T.nova (formerly known as green princeps but not a real one, though one form of this variety identical in appearance of evenly and narrowly split leaflets to princeps except minus white stuff
Dave ,what you said makes sense, the question I did not understand is why the lower sides of leaves have heavier white powder than the upper sides which should be loaded with more white stuff due to the direct exposure to the sun.
Taken in the morning

taken in the morning


taken in the day.

taken in the morning

[garryendson]

As for T.nova, it is formerly known as green T.princeps ,but actually NOT T.princeps. Plus, we recently found there are 2 forms (sources) of this variety.the first version we normally see is narrowly and evenly leaved like princeps, butt growing robust and fast .The second is wide and irregularly leaved and fast growing as well. Kevin, yours belongs to the second wide version. The first narrow version is identical in appearance of finely and regularly split leaves to T.princeps as most other trachycarpus if not all have wide and irregularly dividing leaflets in seedlings.That is probably why people call them green T.princeps.