Champagne Palm Plant

Champagne Palm

Hyophorbe lagenicaulis, known commonly as the Bottle Palm or Palmiste Gargoulette, is a species of flowering plant in the Arecaceae family. It is found only in Round Island, Mauritius. The Indian Nursery is a grower of these rare palm in India.

Bottle Palm has a large swollen (sometimes bizarrely so) trunk. It is a myth that the trunk is a means by which the palm stores water. Bottle Palm has only four to six leaves open at any time. The flowers of the palm arise from under the crownshaft.

Bottle palms are very cold sensitive and are killed at 32°F (0°C) or colder for any appreciable length of time. They may survive a brief, light frost, but will have foliage damage. Only southern Florida and Hawaii provide safe locations in the USA to grow Bottle Palm, although mature flowering specimens may be occasionally be seen in favored microclimates around Cape Canaveral and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater in coastal central Florida. It makes a fine container-grown palm in other locations as long as it is protected from the cold and not over watered.

While habitat destruction may destroy the last remaining palms in the wild, the survival of the species is assured due to its ubiquitous planting throughout the tropics and subtropics as a specimen plant.