Not all P. Roebelenii are clustering/ clumping in the wild. In their native habitat it is common to see both suckering/ clumping and solitary varieties. However it is MORE common to see them as suckering trees in their native habitat in Laos, but single trees are still not hard to find there. Note the photo from Laos below. Here is another great photo of some growing along the Mekong river as it appeared on the cover of one of the 1994 IPS publications called Princeps back then. Along rivers there they sometimes become rheophytes. Often, seeds collected from wild trees growing in their native habitat will sucker, but seeds collected from cultivated trees will not. To further complicate things, many of the ones you see planted as multiples in cultivation are in fact single trees planted together. This is why you can often cut out smaller plants at the base, and they will NOT grow back. This was the case with one of my P. Roebelenii's. If mine was one of the true suckering varieties, then it likely would have re-sprouted more suckers.

I have a nice size specimen here in east San Diego and I just wanted to chime in that they DO NOT like the cold at all. We had a few nights that dipped into the low 40's and all the leaves showed serious damage. AS I understand it, it will recover in the spring and summer and incur damage again next winter. Our plant is a new acquisition and if it could talk, I am sure it would let us know it is not happy out here. Good luck in your search, I do see them for sale quite a bit. There are tons of seeds on ebay...have you tried that?

I'm not from Texas, but am interested in finding out which palms you discover growing in northern Texas. Keep us updated.

Really nice specimens. I took a photo of one just a bit over a week ago, for my wallpapers... Wallpapers Images It's one of the first. That was my first trip to the Los Angeles / Oceanside area, and I wish I had much more than just the two days. I could have spent a week photographing palm trees and other trees. I'm going to find time to go back down there in the next couple of years.