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Hemithrinax ekmaniana
Jumagua palm is a rare, slow-growing fan-leaved palm endemic to a few limestone hills (mogotes) in Cuba, with fewer than 100 mature plants left in the wild. It is grown mainly in botanical gardens and by specialist collectors, so its care is known from few growers.
Hemithrinax ekmaniana is a palm which is endemic to Cuba. Only a single population of less than 100 mature individuals remains in the wild.
A seed collection picked in 1996 by specialists of Palmetum of Santa Cruz de Tenerife resulted in various plants now growing in a handful of Botanical Gardens; specimens can be found growing at the Montgomery Botanical Center in Miami, Palmetum de Santa Cruz in the Canary Islands, Orto botanico di Messina in Italy and The Jardín Botánico de Las Tunas, in Cuba. Until 2007 no commercial distribution of this plant was ever made, as in 2007 for the first time, seeds collected in the wild entered in the commercial seed trade and reached many growers in various areas of the world.
It is an endemic palm of Mogotes de Jumagua in northern Cuba. This palm survives only on three of the small mogotes where it was rediscovered in 1978 by a group of paleontologists and naturalists looking for fossils in the caverns and cataloging the fauna and flora of the small mountains (Sabaneque Speleological Group). A small number under 100 individuals cling to the steep cliffs.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hemithrinax ekmaniana 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.
