Dwarf jata palm

The Essence

"Copernicia cowellii is the smallest palm in its genus — the genus that also contains the carnauba palm — and one of the slowest-growing palms known. It is endemic to Cuba, restricted to Camagüey Province, where it grows on serpentine soils in inner savannas. Plants are usually no taller than 2–2.5 m, with a solitary pale grey stem that may reach 3 m and 17 cm across but is normally hidden beneath a skirt of persistent dead leaves. The petioles are so short, 10–20 cm, that the stiff, nearly round fan leaves sit almost directly on the stem, forming one compact mass of spiky segments; the blades are yellowish-green above and waxy silvery-white beneath. Growth is measured in decades rather than seasons: about two leaves a year, and measured growth in cultivation amounts to about 40 cm in 20 years. The species is assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, known from five locations, with a decreasing population. Local people use the stems as fence posts and the leaves for roof thatch, hats and baskets. In cultivation it remains poorly known — in circulation only since the late 1990s — and cultivated plants often show nutritional deficiencies that reflect its specialised serpentine requirements."

Described by Britton & P. Wilson in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 41: 17 (1914). The palm has been in circulation only since the late 1990s; the National Tropical Botanical Garden holds a herbarium specimen collected by Tim Flynn in 1994.