Areca vestiaria - maroon Information
A clump-forming, smallish, water-loving, fast growing, monoecious, forest understorey, maroon coloured crownshaft palm. Common in cultivation, rare in the wild. It has smooth, light-grey trunks, 6 m. (20 ft.) tall, 10 cm. (4 inch) diameter with spaced ring leaf scars, and large segmented, pinnate (feather) leaves, 1.2 m. (4 ft.) long, 0.6 m. (2 ft.) wide, green above and beneath.
Solitary or clumping. From drained soils in North Sulawesi and other Molucca Islands, Indonesia. Tolerates cool conditions quite well, and works very well as a houseplant. This form is the rarer one with the maroon-coloured crownshaft. New leaves are maroon-coloured turning to green with maroon-coloured petiole and rachis. This plant is suitable, while young as a houseplant or conservatory plant.
Areca vestiaria - maroon can tolerate close to freezing conditions. But low temperatures are best avoided. It naturally occurs in wet rainforest or seasonally wet forest in low montane locations. In this type of natural environment temperature fluctuations are slight, and this palm prefers a constantly cool or mild climate with little temperature difference between day & night, and Summer & Winter. Under extreme cold conditions we recommend you keep this palm as dry as possible, and well wrapped up.
General Information:
Seeds germinate within 2 months and grow rapidly, but they loose viability fast.
Distribution:
Native to
Work in progress
Distribution Information currently being revised!