Umbrella palm

The Essence

"Hedyscepe canterburyana, the umbrella palm or big mountain palm, is the sole species of its genus and one of the endemic palms of Lord Howe Island, Australia. It grows only on the upper slopes and summits of Mt Gower and Mt Lidgbird, on cliffs and exposed ridges overlooking the sea from about 400 m upward — the higher elevations of an island better known as the home of the kentia palm (Howea forsteriana). A slow-growing, solitary palm to about 10 m, it holds a compact crown of stiff, dark green, markedly recurved fronds above a silvery-glaucous crownshaft and a slender, closely ringed trunk; its egg-shaped fruit ripen dull to deep red below the crownshaft and take up to four years to mature. Nothing about it is fast — the IUCN puts its generation length at 85–90 years. Assessed as Critically Endangered in 2023, with a decreasing population of 11,000–35,000 mature individuals treated as a single location, it is threatened by invasive species and climate change. In cultivation it is increasingly popular among garden enthusiasts in cool subtropical and warm temperate climates such as coastal California, Sydney and Auckland, but it is difficult in the tropics or wherever nights are never cool."

First described as Kentia canterburyana by Charles Moore and Ferdinand von Mueller in 1870, the species was moved to its own genus, Hedyscepe, by H. Wendland and Drude in 1875. Together with Rhopalostylis of New Zealand and Norfolk Island it forms the subtribe Rhopalostylidinae, differing from Rhopalostylis in having more than six stamens and protandrous rather than protogynous flowers; both genera were placed in Archontophoenicinae until a 2005 revision. The palm is traded horticulturally at national and international level, and in California is rated rare but often available at palm specialty nurseries.