Couldn't help but comment, even tho it's probably way too late. I bought my mobile home 7 yrs ago. Along the outside screened wall of my lanai ( my favorite place to read, relax ) was a scraggly looking one ft tall, unattened-to strip of wimpy areca palms. Not knowing any better I gave them lots of TLC and now I have a dense 20 ft long mess of a fast growing, dense, strong hedge. They are now a healthy 9 ft tall jungle that is threatening to lift up the 9 ft high metal roof and tear the screens to shreds unless I vigorously top them off and thin them out 4x a year ! So have just begun the arduous task to cutting them all down, ( have the loppers, long handled choppers and chain saw ready ) and then digging up the roots and discarding the whole mess to Waste Management. Am a one man operation, over 70, so will take it slow, one day at a time. Am hoping in 4 weeks it'll be complete. Am now considering a medium growing red-tipped cocoplum hedge that will be a breeze keeping it at 7 - 7 1/2 ft tall. My advise, be very careful before planting any arecas !!! ( smile )

^Bump I am still in search of this plant or seed if anyone would be willing to trade me. Thank you!

Hello from Ft. Lauderdale, I am the go-to guy in my nursery for ideas, answers to questions, etc. I sell hundreds of both palms each month, and can tell you the basic visual difference. Cat palms are considered understory palms (in nature, grows under the canopy of taller plants) so are conditioned to like shadier areas during the heat of the day. They like LOTS of water, can actually take being overwatered, but no drought. They grow to about 7 or 8 ft. tall in the ground, often shorter in a pot. The stems of a cat palm are rather bulbous towards the bottom as compared to the pencil-thin and pencil-shaped stems of the areca palm. The cat palm has relatively few stems, perhaps a dozen in a 10 inch pot, the areca many, many usually thinner stems. The areca will grow to 18 to 20 ft. tall in the ground with the stems growing correspondently thicker, and by necessity is fine in full sun, and to perhaps 10 or 12 ft. in a large pot. The cat palm will therefore take more shade for a longer time (indoors, for example) as long as adequate food and water are applied. Cat palms can tolerate full sun, but will usually get an overall yellowish appearance in the leaves from too much sun, which will green up again when the hot summer weather turns cooler.

The palms look good. They could use more sun. The areca palms were planted with lots of seeds in one pot. The areca palms in the cluster compete and some will die off. Brown tips is usually the result of low humidity indoors.