Mexican Fan Palm (Washingtonia robusta)

Taken on 06/02/2011, here are some pictures of the magnificent, towering Mexican Fan Palm trees that surround our pool area at The Players Club. I believe this complex is about 22 years old, and these beautiful mature palms certainly reflect that. Almost all of them are between 80 and 100 feet, the maximum height of the Mexican Fan Palm.

DESCRIPTION: Washingtonia robusta, commonly called the Mexican Fan Palm or Mexican Washingtonia, is a palm tree native to western Sonora and Baja California Sur in northwestern Mexico. It grows to 82 feet tall and sometimes up to 100 feet and is topped with a crown of 20-25 large fronds.  Leaves are rich glossy green, palmate, or fan-shaped, about 5 feet long and 4 feet wide. They have lance-shaped leaflets with elegant drooping tips that provide a very tropical appearance to the landscape. The petioles of mature palms are armed with short, sharp thorns. Be careful when trimming. In the late spring, the Mexican Fan Palm produces small creamy flowers. Flowers grow in clusters on the branched inflorescence 8-10ft long that extends past the leaves. Flowers are followed by black berry-like drupes, about 1/2 inches in diameter.The thin-fleshed edible fruit is a spherical, blue-black drupe, about 24–31 inches in diameter. The Mexican fan palm is not self-cleaning and often has a skirt of turned-down brown dead fronds. For this reason it is often called the Petticoat palm. Fortunately for us, property management hires someone to come in every year and climb these monsters and trim off the dead fronds.  As there are about 13 of them scattered about the pool and spa area, this is quite a job and necessitates shutting down the pool area for at least a full day.