Chamaedorea radicalis origin map
Update in progress 28/12/2009 Chamaedorea radicalis is a delicate looking, little shade loving, pinnate palm from Northeast Mexico, but under those delicate looks lies a tough little cookie. C radicalis is related to the famous Parlour palm. Chamaedorea elegans, sold by the thousand, but is much much tougher. Although from tropical latitudes this palm can be found at altitudes of at least 1400m in cool rain forest conditions and is reputed to be hardy to -12C, however, -7C seems to be the widely accepted limit before defoliation occurs. The palms pictured on this page have withstood -5.6C with ripening fruit and come through unscathed. C. radicalis is solitary trunked and can reach 2m (6ft) in height, but is very slow growing so will take many years to reach full height in the UK. They may be sold singly or in clumps to bush them out when young. If you want to grow fruit and seed go for the clumps as C radicalis as all Chaamaedorea, have male and female flowers on different plants
C radicalis clump early Dec 2006
The Palms are sexed, so you need a male and female to produce fruit and seed, but they flower when still very small. They do not seem to flower in any particular season and although the palms are hardy to -7C the flowers are killed by frost. The ideal time for flowering is mid to late spring as it gives the fruit time to set and expand before the colder weather of Autumn slows growth down.
Ripening fruit
My palm clump was planted out in 2004 and survived under fleece the first winter with no damage. Then to my amazement they flowered in 2005. Setting fruit and seed. The fruit started to ripen, turning first orange as we went into the winter. Unfortunately the winter gales knocked many of the seed off the stems before fully ripening. Only 5 seed remained on the stem in the spring of 2006. These were havested in May and sown in early June. Only one seed germinated after two months but showed UK grown palms was possible.
Fist home grown seedling
pic taken Sep 2006
The seedling was quite robust and grew well. The growth was much more stocky than the parents and over it's first year grew to be a bit of a monster.
The parent plants are aslo did well in 2006 with two flower branches and over 90 fruit, these did.
fist home grown seedling
May 2007 @ 8 months
Update December 2009 Three years has passed now and a lot has happened here regarding these palms. The 70 fruit turned out to be over 90 and ripened during spring of 2007. These were havested in May 2007, and sown at room temperature of 20 to 24C. Over an 8 week period 75 seed germinated, creating a Chamaedorea radicalis forest of seedlings.