Copernicia baileyana Seeds | Yarey Palm
LATIN NAME: Copernicia baileyana
COMMON NAME: Yarey Palm
Plant Profile
Bailey’s yarey palm is a massive fan palm of twelve to twenty metres with a trunk a metre thick, a crown of fifty or more stiff blue-green leaves and black fruit the size of a plum. The leaf stalks are heavy enough that a falling frond is a hazard.
It is endemic to Cuba, where it grows on serpentine and limestone ground in the centre and east of the island, often in nearly pure stands. The leaves have been cut for thatch and for hats for centuries, and the local name yarey refers to the fibre as much as to the palm.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus Copernicia is the wax palm group, and the commercial carnauba wax of Brazil comes from a different species, Copernicia prunifera, not from this one. The wax is produced on the young leaves as a thin grey coating that can be scraped and boiled, and the same coating is what gives the leaves their blue bloom.
The palm is extremely slow. A trunk a metre thick takes decades to form, and a plant in cultivation may take twenty years to begin flowering. Its seedlings tolerate poor, alkaline and serpentine soils, and the species is one of the few large palms that will grow on ground where almost nothing else survives.
Uses & Benefits
The leaves are cut for thatch, for hats, for baskets and for brooms, and the fibre is stripped and bleached before weaving. The trunk is used for posts and for the walls of rural houses, since the outer wood is hard and resists rot. The fruit is eaten by livestock but not by people.
In cultivation the palm is a specimen for tropical parks, where its scale is the point. It is rarely sold as a small plant, because a seedling looks like a fan of grass for a decade. In Cuba the stands are protected in reserves, and cutting is regulated. The leaf fibre is also twisted into rope and into coarse sandals in the Cuban countryside, and the young leaves are fed to cattle in dry years.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed in a deep pot at twenty-five to thirty degrees, and expect two to six months before the first leaf. The seed is large and the seedling sends a long root down before it makes a leaf, so a shallow tray is a mistake.
Give the plant full sun and a free root run, in a frost-free climate with a pronounced dry season. Water young plants through the first two summers, then leave them to the weather. Do not expect speed: the palm is a fifty-year project, and a container plant will live for years without making a trunk. The palm is also tolerant of salt wind, and it is planted along the coast where the sea spray kills other trees.
Our Take
A monumental palm for a tropical park or a patient collector, and one that outlives the person who plants it. Give it sun and space and forget about speed.
Related Reading
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