The Jubaea chilensis - Coconut palm

This hardy feather palm is also called coconut palm of Chile. It has strong stiff leaves that cannot break easily and is hardy to -15 degrees. It is very rare.

There are only 100,000 specimens left in the wild. That's because they used to be cut down for their juice. They used to make Chilean palm wine from it. It can grow up to 25 metres high and also gets small coconuts, even in the Netherlands. Of course, we need some patience for this. The trunk can reach a thickness of 1.3 metres! It can withstand long times of drought, and doesn't really need a very hot summer to grow. It's the most hardy feather palm.

Jubaea chilensis is a palm tree with a trunk up to 24 meters high and a diameter up to 1.8 meters. The trunk sometimes shows a slight thickening in the middle, is usually dark gray, with rings of diamond-shaped leaf foot scars on the older parts.

The crown of leaves is up to 7.6 meters wide and 4.5-6 meters high.

The leaves are pinnate, 2.4-3.6 metres long, on short petioles up to 30 cm long, narrow, rigid, dark green at the top and grey-green at the bottom.

They are 1.2 metres long, upright with small purple male and female flowers on the same inflorescence.

The fruit is round, 2.5 cm, yellow to orange in hanging bunches.