Rhapidophyllum hystrix
Needle Palm
- Type
- Palm
- Hardiness
- USDA Zones 7–10
- Mature size
- Height 6–8 Feet · Spread 6–8 Feet
- Growth rate
- Slow
- Seasonality
- Evergreen
This variety is no actively in production in our propagation house and may not return to our catalogue. We maintain this page purely for reference and archival purposes. If you would like to grow this plant, tell us. Your interest helps guide what we bring back.
For a larger installation or commercial project, write hello@woodlanders.net.
Rhapidophyllum hystrix, the Needle Palm, has a fair claim to being the most cold-hardy palm on earth. A mounding fan palm that builds a short trunk only slowly, the species has come through six degrees below zero and stands in gardens as far north as Washington, D.C. The name comes from the long, sharp, black needles bristling around the base of the crown, which guard the short flower stalks and the seed clusters of the female plants. A scarce native of the Deep South, growing in widely scattered sites from lower South Carolina through Florida to Mississippi, in moist shaded ravines and along stream banks.
Woodlanders grew the Needle Palm for decades as a nursery standard, the palm we pointed to when a gardener in Tennessee or Virginia insisted a palm was out of the question. Plant in moist, well-drained soil in sun, shade, or anything between, and mulch young plants heavily where winters bite. A reference listing for a palm we have offered many times and fully intend to again.
wine-red flowers