Pronounciation: Boo-TEE-a ca-pee-TA-ta

Hardiness zones
Sunset 8-9 and 11-24
USDA 8-11

Landscape Use: Accent palm, large residential and commercial plantings, mesic and oasis design themes in desert regions. Grows well in tropical or arid climates.

Form & Character: Feather palm with a single trunk, upright, "short and stout", yet graceful, slow growing, tropical.

Growth Habit: Evergreen, perennial monocot, slow growing to 20 to 30 feet in height with stout single trunks, with prominent, large leaf scars.

Foliage/texture: Clustered, graceful, downward curing pinnately compound fronds to 6 to 10 feet in length; coarse texture.

Flowers & fruits: Long, clustered stalks of bearing plumes of bearing creamish-red flowers; fruit are conspicuous and many, edible, bright yellow to red, ovoid fruit (pindo dates), 1-inch wide, with a large seed and a sweet stringy pulp.

Seasonal color: None

Temperature: Cold hardy to 10^o to 15^oF; more cold hardy than Phoenix canariensis.

Light: Full sun

Soil: Needs good soil drainage and might sometimes need supplemental magnesium fertilizer (or Epsom salts) in areas with excessively alkaline soil.

Watering: In desert locations, irrigate regularly especially during summer.

Pruning: None, except to remove old or dead fronds.

Propagation: By seed, very slow to germinate.

Disease and Pests: None

Additional comments: Pindo palm is a relatively cold tolerant palm whose meritorious form and performance makes it equal too or superior to Phoenix canariensis for residential landscape settings in Phoenix. It's too bad this great palm is so rarely seen in Phoenix urban landscapes or found in local nurseries.

Culinary note: Pindo palm fruits are used to make jellies and wine.