Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Royal palm

Roystonea

Royal palm
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain

Roystonea is a genus of eleven tall, single-stemmed palms from the Caribbean, Florida, Mexico and northern South America, including the commonly planted royal palms such as R. regia and R. oleracea. They grow best in full sun with plenty of water and rich, humus-heavy soil.

Family
Arecaceae (Palm family)
Light
Full sun
Water
Water regularly and generously, especially in the first years; they thrive on supplemental irrigation.
Soil
Deep, fertile soil rich in humus that drains well.
Temperature
Tropical to subtropical; protect from frost, as most species are damaged below about 0 °C.
How easy
Moderate

About

Roystonea is a genus of eleven species of monoecious palms, native to the Neotropics, in the Caribbean, the adjacent coasts of Florida in the United States, Mexico, Central America and northern South America. Commonly known as the royal palms, the genus was named after Roy Stone, a U.S. Army engineer. It contains some of the most recognizable and commonly cultivated palms of tropical and subtropical regions.

Where it grows

Roystonea has a circum-Caribbean distribution which ranges from southern Florida in the north, to southern Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua in the east and Venezuela and Colombia in the south. Species are found throughout the Caribbean, although only Jamaica and Hispaniola (with two native species) and Cuba (with five native species) have more than one native species. A few species are planted in Tunisia as well.

Uses

Royal palms are widely planted for decorative purposes throughout their native region, and elsewhere in the tropics and subtropics. Royal palms are very fond of water and thrive on supplemental irrigation. They also do better in a soil with much humus.

Other Roystonea plants

Puerto Rico royal palm · Imperial Palm · Cuban Royal Palm

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Roystonea 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…