BOTANICAL NAME: Rhapidophyllum hystrix
COMMON NAME: Needle palm
COUNTRY of ORIGIN: Southeastern United States - primarily southwestern Mississippi, southern Alabama, southern Georgia, northern peninsular Florida, and the southeastern most edge of coastal South Carolina.
COLD HARDINESS: Needle palms are the most cold hardy species of palm in the world. They are adaptable to zone 6b, and have even survived through zone 5 winters with little protection ! They will easily survive sub-zero temperatures. This is the palm for you - if you don't want to ever have to consider any winter protection. This palm is as tough as nails...or perhaps in this case, needles...
SIZE and CHARACTERISTICS: Needle palms are one of those weird palms that can either possess a clumping habit or have a solitary trunk... Which looks better? - This is the age old question... guess it depends on who you ask. The solitary trunks are nice because you can see the trunk better, clumps on the other hand will get wider and look fuller and generally take up more space. They grow slowly to about 8 to 10 feet tall and easily just as wide, or wider.
They aren't called needle palms for no reason, they have been known to bite the hand that reaches in to steal their babies! Better leave that to us.
We are always collecting Needle palm seeds, can't get enough of them...so if you have mature, seed producing specimens - please call us... we'll even trade you a palm for your seeds.
here's a nice Solitary trunking form of the Needle palm, it has one highly predominant trunk with few or no suckers whatsoever
there are two other distinct morphologies of the species though...
in addition, you have the Standard Needle palm which has many suckers and forms multiple crowns..this is the most common form
and lastly, there is what we call a Bull Needle.. this one's totally different altogether..it is marked by it's large sparse fronds-sometimes up to ten feet long, large barrel shaped trunk, and it usually appears to be male
