PlantFiles: Wild Date Palm, India Date Palm
Phoenix sylvestris

This palm grows quickly in the San Antonio area. While it does get damaged by temperatures between 23 and 21 degrees F, the spear for me has stayed green and by Labor Day, it has fully recovered. This palm should be more widely planted here. Does great with the heat and drought.

I planted Phoenix sylvestris (purchased in a blue plastic pot from LOWE'S in 2011) in the ground in the spring of 2011. It grew quite some and when the winter came it was a mild winter of 2011-12 and the lowest temp was 22F just one night and then more than a month later we had 28F followed by another night of 25F. The palm is brown some and green some, but I was able to pull the central spear. So it either is only hardy for Z10 or perhaps it is true when some nursery specialist told me to NOT purchase any palms in blue pots from LOWE'S, because he said the nursery who grows those palms treat them with something that makes those palms 1 full hardiness zone less hardy. So whichever is true I was surprised that in Z9A (mostly Z9B) weather this palm that should survive Z8B had its spear pulled easily the next day after we were hit by 22F-25F for a few hours at night. It does not mean it will die, cause it may recover but a spear-pull is not a good sign.

P.S. I just bought a larger specimen with a 2 foot "trunk" and planted it in a sunny spot. Will see how it does this spring, summer and especially the next winter. Hopefully the much larger tree will survive.

This excellent, if very spiny, palm is becoming quite popular as the date palm of choice in southern Louisiana. I will always consider it the "poor man's Phoenix dactylifera," but it does have one big thing going for it: It's all but immune to graphiola (false smut), a leaf problem that plagues P. dactylifera and P. canariensis in humid areas with lots of rain. It (along with P. dactylifera) also is immune to the terrible Fusarium wilt that devastates P. canariensis. Its growth rate is intermediate between those two. Mine is extremely cold-tolerant, showing zero damage down to the mid-20ºs F, despite being in a pot (~15 gal.) on a cold concrete driveway. Some specimens have a very orange/peach color to their upper trunks / leaf bases, while others are more of a standard date palm grayish-brown. Select a nice one and you won't regret it, as long as you live in zone 9A or higher, though they should be fine even in 8B. (My aunt has a big one in her yard on Skidaway Island in Savannah, GA.)

Overall, I'd love to see this tree completely replace P. canariensis in the rainy Gulf South, due to the disease resistant traits I listed above, and due its overall more elegant look, mainly due to having a narrower trunk and bluer fronds.

Where to see them:
A quartet (planted in '09 or '10) in front of the Kenner Police Dept. a few feet from I-10 at Loyola Ave.
Tons (planted in 2008 or '09) in front of P.F. Chang's restaurant at Lakeside Mall on Veterans Blvd.

This palm was heavily marketed here in central SC last summer. I planted three in mid August, and protected two with xmas lights and frost cloth in Dec. The unprotected specimen turned brown, but it is still alive with a half green spear that won't budge. The specimens protected are beautiful and green. I only protected them for about 2 months, and only burned the lights those nights when the temps dropped below about 22f. I moved 2 a few weeks ago and was amazed that they had developed extensive root systems in only 7 mos. I will never attempt to move another Sylvester date - they root quickly and are covered in dangerous and very long thorns. I'm hoping that they will become more hardy with age, so winter protection is no longer necessary. Time will tell.

WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!!!! How beautiful!

Sylvestris dates are not supposed to do well in my temperate zone, 8a-8b. It has survived it's first winter and seems to be doing quite well.

This is a striking Phoenix, though often confused with Phoenix canariensis. It has more blue-green leaves with more visciously spiney leaflet tips, and slightly more plumose looking. Finding 'true' undiluted species is not that easy, but they are around. I have had several seedlings and they are particularly slow, but forgiving palms (take 'unintentional' drought well).

This is another palm in that promiscuous phoenix tribe that includes the pygmy date [P. roebelenii], the California date [P. dactylifera], the Senegal date palm [P. reclinata], and the Canary Island date [P. canariensis].

The picture I have posted, however, is a one of a kind--it's a three-headed palm. I've heard [but I don't think it's true] that there are only a half dozen multiple-head palms extant. Whatever; this is one--a three-headed sylvester.