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Livistona

Livistona
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Cookie assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0

Livistona is a genus of fan palms (family Arecaceae) native to southeastern and eastern Asia, Australasia and the Horn of Africa, with commonly grown members such as the Chinese fan palm (L. chinensis) and the Australian cabbage palm (L. australis). Grow them in bright light with regular moisture and room to reach their full height.

Family
Arecaceae (Palm family)
Light
Full sun, Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during the growing season and let the top few centimetres dry out before watering again in winter.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile potting mix or garden loam.
Temperature
18–35 °C; protect below 5 °C
How easy
Easy

About

Livistona is a genus of palms, the botanical family Arecaceae, native to southeastern and eastern Asia, Australasia, and the Horn of Africa. They are fan palms, the leaves with an armed petiole terminating in a rounded, costapalmate fan of numerous leaflets.

L. speciosa, locally called kho, gives its name to Khao Kho District in Thailand.

Where it grows

The genus has a disjunct distribution, which is split into three contiguous areas. The range of Livistona carinensis in Africa is very far away from that of the other species in the genus. In 1983 John Dransfield and Natalie Whitford Uhl first suggested that this odd pattern was due to a formerly much more extensive distribution during the warmer and moister climate of the Miocene, including areas between it and the rest, but that prehistoric climate change split them. Later DNA evidence of a mass of ancient extinctions between L. carinensis and the rest is thought to corroborate the theory. The recognition of Saribus has split the remaining distribution into a group of species found in Australia and southern New Guinea, and another group of species in East and Southeast Asia.

Other Livistona plants

Australian Fan Palm · Livistona benthamii · Fountain palm · Ribbon Fan Palm · Livistona endauensis

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Livistona 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.

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