''Trachycarpus fortunei'', the Chinese windmill palm, windmill palm or Chusan palm, is a
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
hardy evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...
palm tree in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
Arecaceae,
native
Native may refer to:
People
* Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth
* Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory
** Native Americans (disambiguation)
In arts and entert ...
to parts of China, Japan, Myanmar and India.
Description
Growing to tall, ''Trachycarpus fortunei'' is a single-stemmed
fan palm
Fan palm as a descriptive term can refer to any of several different kinds of palms ( Arecaceae) in various genera with leaves that are palmately lobed (rather than pinnately compound). Most are members of the subfamily Coryphoideae, though a f ...
. The diameter of the trunk is up to . Its texture is very rough, with the persistent leaf bases clasping the stem as layers of coarse fibrous material. The
leaves
A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...
have long
petioles which are bare except for two rows of small spines, terminating in a rounded fan of numerous leaflets. Each leaf is long, with the petiole long, and the leaflets up to 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.
[ 3: 443–448, 4: 491.]
The flowers are yellow (male) and greenish (female), about across, borne in large branched panicles up to long in spring; it is
dioecious
Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...
, with male and female flowers produced on separate trees. The
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
is a yellow to blue-black, reniform (kidney-shaped)
drupe
In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...
long, ripening in mid-autumn.
[
]
Distribution and habitat
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
Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...
southwards), southern Japan (Kyushu
is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...
), south to northern Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
and northern India
North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...
, growing at altitudes of .[WCSP, World Checklist of Selected Plant Families]
''Trachycarpus fortunei''
/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.
Windmill palm 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 in the mountains of southern China. However, it is not the northernmost naturally occurring palm in the world, as European fan palm (''Chamaerops humilis
''Chamaerops'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Arecaceae. The only currently fully accepted species is ''Chamaerops humilis'', variously called European fan palm or the Mediterranean dwarf palm. It is one of the most hardy palms, ...
'') grows further north in the Mediterranean.[
]
Uses
''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.[
]
Cultivation
''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 highly valued by palm enthusiasts, landscape designers and gardeners. It is grown successfully in cool climates such as the UK, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, western Poland as well as southern and western Germany. In the UK it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit
The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established annual award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions.
History
The Award of Garden Merit ...
.
In North America, mature specimens can be found growing in the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, the upper southern states, and Mid-Atlantic states.
Commonly lower tolerance limits of are cited for mature plants.[Bean, W. J. (1980). ''Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles'' 8th ed., vol. 4. John Murray .] Young plants are less hardy, and can be damaged by only .
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 tall, with leaflets less than long; the short stature and small leaves give it greater tolerance of wind exposure.[ It has often been treated as a separate species ''T. wagnerianus'' in popular works, but is now included within ''T. fortunei''.][
Sokolov ''et al.'', 2016 found one healthy specimen in ]Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the ...
. Individuals of the ''T. f.'' '' subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
have lived outside in the Connecticut town of Woodbury continuously since the early 2000s with protection, where some winters have reached .
Nomenclature
The species was brought from Japan (Dejima
, in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, it ...
) to Europe by the German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold
Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora (plants), flora and fauna (animals), fauna and the introduction of ...
in 1830. The common name refers to Chusan Island (now Zhoushan Island
Zhoushan Island is the principal and namesake island in the Zhoushan Islands, formerly romanized as the ChusanIslands, an archipelago administered by Zhoushan Prefecture in Zhejiang Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the province ...
), where Robert Fortune
Robert Fortune (16 September 1812 – 13 April 1880) was a Scottish botanist, plant hunter and traveller, best known for introducing around 250 new ornamental plants, mainly from China, but also Japan, into the gardens of Britain, Australia, a ...
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.Windmill Palm Trees- Tropical Accent Plants- Cold Hardy for Northern United States and Canadian Gardens
/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
''Rhapis excelsa'', also known as broadleaf lady palm or bamboo palm, is a species of fan palm (Arecaceae subfamily Coryphoideae, tribe Trachycarpeae) in the genus ''Rhapis'', probably native to southern China and Taiwan. It is not known in the w ...
'', with the confusion arising due to a misunderstanding of Japanese vernacular names.[
]
See also
*Hardy palms
Hardy palms are any of the species of palm (Arecaceae) that are able to withstand ''brief'' periods of colder temperatures and even occasional snowfall. A few palms are native to higher elevations of south Asia where true winter conditions occu ...
Gallery
Vancouver palms englishbay.jpg, English Bay, BC, Canada, alt=Specimens at English Bay, Vancouver
English Bay is an open bay northwest of the Burrard Peninsula in British Columbia, Canada, extending from the headland between Siwash Rock and Prospect Point on Vancouver's Downtown peninsula in the northeast, to the northwestern tip of Poin ...
, Canada
Palmtree solomons.jpg, Solomons Island, MD, USA, alt=Mature plant in Solomons Island along the coast of Maryland, USA
Palmen Duesseldorf 083.jpg, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
, Germany, alt=Plant in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
, Germany
Arecaceae-zhejiang2005-2.JPG, alt=Fanned leaves of ''T. fortunei''
Snow on Trachycarpus fortunei.JPG, N. Ireland, UK, alt=Tree after a light fall of snow (Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, UK)
Airandspace trachycarpus.jpg, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, USA, alt=Specimen at the National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
in Washington, D.C., USA
References
Further reading
*Beccari, Odoardo: 1905 "Le Palme del Genere ''Trachycarpus''", ''Webbia''; I
*Beccari, Odoardo: 1920 "Recens Palme Vecchio Mondo", ''Webbia''; V
*Beccari, Odoardo: 1931 "Asiatic Palms, Corypheae", ''Annals of the Royal Bot. Gard. Calcutta''; 13
*Martius, Carl Friedrich Philipp von: 1850 ''Historia Naturalis Palmarum'', Band 3
*Stührk, Chris: 2006 "Molekularsystematische Studien in der Subtribus Thrinacinae, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gattung ''Trachycarpus'' H. Wendl". (Arecaceae)
*
{{Authority control
fortunei
Trees of Myanmar
Trees of China
Trees of Japan
Plants described in 1861
Garden plants of Asia
Ornamental trees