Have you ever grown Palm Trees that Flower? You’re in luck; learn about them with us and start growing your own today!
Palm trees are mostly known for their tropical beauty, but many of them produce beautiful blooms before they ripen. Here are some of the most beautiful ones that Flower.
Do Palm Trees Bloom?
You might be surprised, but palm trees actually do have flowers! They just don’t look like the big, colorful blooms you might be thinking of.
Instead, they grow clusters of smaller flowers on long stalks. These can be feathery or branched, and sometimes they even have a strong smell. It’s not the most showy flower arrangement, but it gets the job done of helping the palm tree reproduce!
Palm Trees that Flower
1. Corypha Palm
Botanical Name: Corypha umbraculifera
Let’s start the list with a bang–the Corypha palm. It’s also called the Talipot palm and is famous for having the biggest flower cluster in the world. The flowers are tiny in a yellow-white color and grow atop the tree. Pretty cool, right?
Fun Fact: Corypha palm only flowers once in its entire lifetime, which can be as long as 80 years!
2. Foxtail Palm
Botanical Name: Wodyetia bifurcata
Foxtail palms are known for their beautiful leaves that resemble a fluffy foxtail. But they also have interesting flowers!
These palms produce clusters of small, white flowers that emerge from the base of the crown shaft–just where the leaves meet the trunk. They aren’t super showy, but they are present.
3. Triangle Palm
Botanical Name: Dypsis decaryi
The Triangle palm has flowers, too. They’re small and pale yellow, but they come in large, branching clusters that can grow up to 5 feet long! These clusters appear near the base of the palm in spring.
4. Royal Palm
Botanical Name: Roystonea regia
Royal palms are beautiful palm trees that flower. They produce clusters of tiny white or yellowish flowers that are hidden at the base of the leaves.
The clusters are actually separate male and female flowers, working together to produce the small, purple fruits loved by birds.
5. Coconut Palm
Botanical Name: Cocos nucifera
Coconut palms are all about practicality, and their flowers are no exception! Unlike some of the showier palms, Coconut palm flowers are small and not very flashy. They can be–male flowers, which are numerous and yellowish, and female flowers, which are bigger and round.
6. Date Palm
Botanical Name: Phoenix dactylifera
Date palms are date-makers, but their flowers are interesting, too! They’re dioecious, which means there are separate male and female trees.
Male trees produce feathery clusters of tiny, yellow flowers that pump out pollen. The female trees have smaller, greenish-yellow flowers that bunch together.
7. Bangalow Palm
Botanical Name: Archontophoenix cunninghamiana
The Bangalow palm is an absolute beauty with feathery fronds but most people miss that it flowers. The flowers appear near the base and dangle like pink/purple streamers. They aren’t huge but eventually turn into red berries that birds love to gobble up.
8. Fishtail Palm
Botanical Name: Caryota
Fishtail palm is known for its leaves that look like a fish’s tail. What’s really unique about this palm is how it flowers. Fishtail palm flowers grow in long, hanging clusters that look a bit like a mop head.
The flowering starts at the top of the tree and slowly works its way down the trunk. Once the flowers at the bottom bloom, the whole tree dies!
9. Carpentaria Palm
Botanical Name: Carpentaria acuminata
Carpentaria Palm, unlike the dramatic Fishtail Palm, is a real looker! It’s a fast-growing palm with graceful, arching fronds that can reach over 10 feet long.
The flowers aren’t its main attraction. They’re small and white, appearing throughout the warmer months. They’re kind of easy to miss, but they do turn into bright red fruits later on.
10. Betel Nut Palm
Botanical Name: Areca catechu
Betel Nut palms also produce small flowers in a yellow-green shade. But they’re not grown for the flowers. They produce oval-shaped nuts that many people chew as a stimulant. If you care for the palms properly, they can grow as tall as 60 feet.
11. Alexander Palm
Botanical Name: Archontophoenix alexandrae
Alexander palm trees have flowers that are quite the sight. They come in large, hanging clusters that are about 3 feet long and have a lovely creamy white color with soft purple hints.
The best part is that they can bloom at any time throughout the year. They’re fragrant, too!
12. Christmas Palm
Botanical Name: Adonidia merrillii
Christmas palm trees have small and subtle flowers. They are either cream or yellow in color and can flower throughout the year. But they’re not much to look at. The real stars are the bright red fruits that appear around Christmastime. They also earn it the name.
13. Bottle Palm
Botanical Name: Hyophorbe lagenicaulis
Bottle palms cannot be left out of palm trees that flower. They might be small and clustered, but they have a soft beauty. These flowers are green-yellow in color and emerge from beneath the crown shaft, so you’ll only spot them if you look closely.
14. Traveller’s Palm
Botanical Name: Ravenala madagascariensis
This palm tree brings tropical effects with banana-like foliage. Talking about flowers, it displays large, creamy, white blooms that arise from the boat-shaped axils of the green bracts that are filled with nectar.
