Trachycarpus fortunei
Common name:
Chinese Windmill Palm
Windmill Palm
Pronunciation:
trak-ee-KAR-pus for-TOO-nee-eye
Family:
Arecaceae (Palmae)
Genus:
Type:
Broadleaf
Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon:
No
- Broadleaf evergreen tree, a palm, may grow to 30 ft (~9 m) tall, but usually shorter, trunk about 10 cm in diameter, usually narrowest at the base, clothed in loose, stringy, brown-black fibers from disintegrating leaf sheaths. Leaves circular, fan-shaped, about 1.25 m across, deeply incised and pleated, with 40-50 segments, ends drooping; petiole 1 m long, margin sharply serrated to only rough and bumpy. Flowers yellow. Fruits rounded, about 1 cm, black, covered with a white bloom.
- Sun to partial shade; grows in many soils except wet, tolerant to drought, wind and salt. Small plants can be grown inside in indirect bright light.
- Hardy to USDA Zone (6)7. Native to northern Myanmar (Burma) and central and eastern China.
- fortunei: Apparently, the German physician and botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold was the first westerner to see this species and he introduced it to Europe in 1830. The Scottish plant collector Robert Fortune (1813-1880) brought significant quantities of the palm into England starting in 1849. It was first described by Carl F. P. von Martinus in 1850 but given an illegitimate name. The present name, which honors Fortune, was given in 1861.
- Oregon State Univ. campus: east side of Ocean Administration, 26th and Arnold Way.
Click image to enlarge
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plant habit
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plant habit
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young leaf
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leaf and trunk
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old leaf
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expanding flower clusters
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explanding flower cluster
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mature flower cluster and flowers
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immature fruit clusters
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developing fruit
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mature fruit
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trunk
