Rare and Elegant Parajubaea Palms
By Tyson Curtis in Partnership with Flora Grubb Gardens
Parajubaea is a genus of palms native to high altitudes in the mountains of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. All of them have graceful crowns of swaying, silver-backed fronds and edible nuts. The two Bolivian species that we grow come from seasonally dry, cool mountain valleys on the eastern slope of the Andes. This is probably why they thrive in California, while struggling in other palm paradises like Hawaii and Florida.
Young parajubaeas are characteristically scruffy and a bit chaotic-looking, but they quickly mature into elegance. Their shiny, gray-green, feathery leaves make a shimmering sound in a light breeze, and they have a soft grace that fits seamlessly into an oasis garden.
Fast-growing, parajubeas retain fibrous leaf bases on their trunks for many years, before eventually shedding their oldest leaves to expose the coarse gray trunk beneath. They are adaptable to various soils, to wind, and to a range of moisture levels—though they don’t appreciate living in a lawn or having their trunk wetted by irrigation. You don’t have to fertilize them much (or at all, in rich clay or loamy soils). All of them do best with lots of sunshine from a young age, at least six hours a day, though young plants in shade can persist until a treefall or pruning favors them with sun. They don’t like extended hot dry wind, but will tolerate a surprising amount of coastal exposure. Once established, they can live off of irrigation when not exposed to sustained heat. They are also frost-hardy, surviving temperatures into the low twenties.
Edible coconuts are perhaps the most delightful aspect of parajubaea culture. Mature parajubaeas produce them in abundance. Unlike a typical coconut palm, which will produce a couple of coconuts per infructescence, parajubaeas have dozens of coconuts on each cluster! They are bite-sized and grown for their nutty meat, containing no coconut water. Adding parajubaea to your edible garden will give you a substantial design element, while also layering in one more exotic edible. Get a good nutcracker, though, because their shells are tough. Parajubaeas are rare in California gardens and make a great conversation piece when entertaining guests.
The smallest parajubaea is Parajubaea sunkha, the zunca palm (pictured above). The specific epithet sunkha is the local Quechua word, in the plant’s native Bolivia, for the reddish fibers in the palm’s crown. These fibers are highly valued for weaving, used to create everything from ropes and baskets to mattresses and saddles. Sunkha is also the slowest growing palm in the genus, maturing with a trunk that is around 14 inches in diameter, with a 15-foot canopy, and around 20 feet tall. It holds more leaves in the crown than other parajubaeas, giving it a lush appearance. The leaves also have a silver sheen to them; they emerge upright before settling in at a subtle angle. Sunkha’s coconuts are dainty: about an inch in diameter.
The coquito palm (or Quito palm), Parajubaea cocoides, is the medium-sized member of the genus, reaching 40 feet tall in a half-century or more of growth, with a crown span of 15 or 20 feet. It comes from Ecuador and Peru, where it once grew in a cloud forest habitat, both milder and moister than its Bolivian counterparts’ home. Nowadays it’s known largely from cultivated specimens in Quito, Cuenca, and other high-altitude Andean cities near its habitat. It’s very well-suited to those Bay Area climates where marine overcast regularly intrudes and frost is rare, but it does not tolerate dry heat to the extent that its Bolivian cousins do. The specific epithet cocoides refers to this palm's visual similarity to the more familiar coconut palm, and it is the most elegant and tropical-looking of the genus. Cocoides has wide leaflets, giving the crown a lush effect, and its seeds, 1.5 inches in diameter, look just like little coconuts, including the eyes.
Parajubaea torallyi, the Pasopaya palm, is the biggest parajubaea, and indeed quite large compared to most other palms. Their magnificence is comparable to the Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis) but Parajubaea torallyi specimens hold their leaves more upright when young, giving them an upswept appearance. Even with this upright form, their canopy spreads 15 to 20 feet or more in diameter. Torallyi grows to 50-plus feet with a husky trunk approaching 2 feet in diameter. It is considered the fastest-growing large palm for the Bay Area. Torallyi’s edible coconuts are well-sized, ranging from 2 to 3 inches in diameter. In Bolivia they grow as high as 11,000 feet above sea level, making them one of the highest altitude palms on earth! Unfortunately this species is endangered in habitat from the over-collection of their edible seeds. Growing one of these rare palms helps buffer them from extinction and brings a vigorous, graceful, easy presence to your landscape.