Chamaerops humilis

Chamaerops humilis
Left - The best Chamaerops in the world! seen here growing outside a centro commercial - or shopping centre in Puerto de Santa Cruz in Tenerife, just outside the botanical gardens. This palm is reliably hardy in the UK and forms a shrubby looking plant with many suckers emerging at the base of the main trunk(s), as the plant matures one, two or rarely more trunks emerge as the dominant ones and seem to start growing faster so that you can see their trunks above the bushy growth below. It is a highly variable palm with leaves of different sizes, with broad segments or fine almost hair like ones, mid green or very silvery and varying degrees of viciousness in the length of the barbed spines that line the edges of the leaf stems.
Right - A young plant growing in the UK with fine leaf segments and an average shade of green/grey. You can buy this palm in many different sizes on line or at Urban Jungle nursery, see their link on our Resources Page.

This is a very old planting of Chamaerops at Tresco Abbey Gardens on the Isle of Scilly.

This fantastic shot was taken by Tato Grasso in Sicily where this palm grows in abundance in the wild. The leaves of this palm are extremely variable and can be as little as 25cm wide or up to 70cm across, looking almost like a Trachycarpus wagnerianus. The colouration can be mid green as in this photo with or without silver undersides, or the whole leaf can be silver/green, they can be quite stiff with average width segments like this plant or have thin and softer deeply divided leaves with fine, almost hair like segments.
This photo is reproduced under the Creative Commons License, a link to the full terms of this permission is on our resources page.

This photo taken by Tato Grasso in Sicily shows ripening seeds held close to the crown and amongst the vicious spins that line the edges of Chamaerops petioles.
This photo is reproduced under the Creative Commons License, a link to the full terms of this permission is on our resources page.