Hurricane palm is a slender, solitary palm from the Mascarene Islands, widely grown as an ornamental in warm tropical gardens. It does best in warm, humid, frost-free conditions with steady moisture and good light.
Family
Arecaceae (Palm family)
Grows as
Palm
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during growth; water more in dry spells and less in cool weather.
Soil
Fertile, well-drained, slightly acidic to neutral loam or potting mix
Temperature
18–32 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Native range
Mascarenes
Climate
wet tropical
About
Dictyosperma is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family found in the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues). The sole species, Dictyosperma album, is widely cultivated in the tropics but has been farmed to near extinction in its native habitat. It is commonly called princess palm or hurricane palm, the latter owing to its ability to withstand strong winds by easily shedding leaves. It is closely related to, and resembles, palms in the genus Archontophoenix. The genus is named from two Greek words meaning "net" and "seed" and the epithet is Latin for "white", the common color of the crownshaft at the top of the trunk.
Where it grows
Living in the coastal forests of the Mascarenes, they experience warm temperatures, high humidity and regular rainfall.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Dictyosperma by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.