Sunday, May 23, 2010

Palm laden with bright color fruits - Foxtail palm

Introduced from Australia and was only discovered as late as 1983...
I pointed out this heavy bunch of ripe Foxtail (Wodyetia bifurcata)  palm fruits to a Malay lady. At first she thought it was a Penang palm. But this one came with a rounder and larger fruit and different coloration. A couple of these palms were fruiting near my neighborhood only this one with a lower branch. It was a freak occurrence - I wont have noticed this palm ( well hidden in the branches of another tree)  if i didn't take a different route back home.

" A fruit in hand ( a pair looks atheistically better)  is better than 2 in the bushy  top" - gathered under the palm. I was looking for any obvious bite marks: one with all the soft pulp 'removed', another one with a clean knife cut... hmm. Birds?bats? Squirrels.

Sliced one to see what is inside.. Sure look delicious.... look only. Look like not too many nature takers..[ someone take a nibble and reported bland and tasteless..and the seed was reported to be poisonous ]

I need a hammer and a sharp knife to slice across the hard outer shell. The white 'fresh' inside is hard as rock. You can tell this palm from others easily - the fronds  look like the 'bushy' tail of a fox...
So you should know how  a fish-tail palm look like?.. go out and look.