Palms of Cape Hatteras September 2019

Sunday Morning, We decided to drive down to the town of Hatteras on the South Side of the island.  On our way I noticed some strange Pinnate fronds poking above some fencing.  When we turned around to look, I was very surprised to see a large healthy trunking Canary Island Date palm.  These are not common north of Charleston South Carolina and are usually quite rare north of Myrtle beach due to the colder winters.  So this was quite a surprise.   On our way to Hatteras we also passed by the Buxton Post office, complete with a healthy Sabal Palmetto out front. 

On our drive through the Island I saw lots of native Sabal Minor palms. they were very common and were growing like weeds all over swampy and forest areas as well as peoples yards.  Ill post the pictures of some Sabal minor later in this blog post.  On our route we also saw lots of healthy Pindos, Palmettos, and Sagos as well as a couple windmill palms.  Near the Ocracoke ferry launch we noticed a house with another even larger Canary Island Date palm.
On our walk over to the house, we saw not only that one but 3 large healthy trunking Canary Island Date palms.  The second one looks to be exposed to the Pamlico sound in the winter and has virtually no protection from the high winds in the winters.  It still looks pretty good though.



The third biggest one that was near the Ferry launch was magnificent . Clearly it has been there quite a while and despite the 2017-2018 winter has put on a nice crown of leaves.











I also saw some Saw Palmetto plants in that neighborhood.  These were the only ones I saw through the whole outer banks.  These were both at completely different houses and I assume the landscaping company that developed the lots picked less common plants judging from the Date palms and Saw Palmetto. 

 

Now on to the Wild Sabal Minor.  It was pretty much everywhere . One of the first ones I could get a picture of was on the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Grounds.  I asked a ranger working at the Lighthouse if he knew anything about the Palms.  He apparently didn't even know there were any palms on the Island.  Here are some other Sabal minor palms in the Buxton area.

I also saw some older Sabal Minor palms.  Sabal minor grow very slow and it can take 70+ years for plants to start to get a visible trunk.  These ones are quite old.

 
 
One thing I also noticed was Spanish moss.  while the northern part of the island (Buxton, Frisco etc) had almost no spanish moss anywhere, once we got into Hatteras we started seeing trees with Spanish moss dripping off of them.  This large old house looked straight out of a halloween flick with the spanish moss coated tree. 


Some other Mossy trees were also down that street .  Interestingly enough one of the biggest ones was in a cemetery.

On our way back to the Campground, I saw one more Canary Island date palm down a Backroad. This one was the smallest but had visible trunk.  

Southern Outer Banks Palms 2019

After driving past Salvo NC, we entered Avon NC.  the last town before Hatteras Island.   We saw more scattered Palmettos and Pindos and a Couple European fan Palms and windmills.  However I did see one very big, ragged but healthy Washingtonia palm.  Clearly a hybrid Filibusta, It looked pretty green on the top half of the fronds.  It looks like it had a volunteer seedling but it didn't make it apparently.  This palm was Massive . Especially the trunk .  It was the only Washingtonia I saw in the entire outer banks besides a very young small Robusta planted in Buxton that clearly hasn't been there that long.


This building also had a small healthy Pindo palm on the streetside.  Some healthy sagos were also nearby.


Speaking of Sago Palms, once we got into Buxton on Hatteras Island there was a large abundance of Sagos many were pretty big too.


Entering the Town of Buxton we saw a nice big clump of European fan palms outside a diner.

There was also a small, very beat up Date palm . This palm has been there since at least 2007 according to Google Maps and has gained virtually no size.  It seems to survive every bad winter despite being planted in low nutrient sand and being exposed to winds off the ocean and salt spray.  however it has a lot of green growth and clearly made it.



















The main street had a few palms around.  Some Pindos and a Good amount of Palmettos were planted outside some rental units and the Gas Station.  One of the Palmettos looked like it was planted at a small size and had a thicker trunk as seed grown palms tend to adapt better to the colder area than Florida transplants.
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Another nearby Gas station also had some nice Sabal Palmetto out front.  Google streetview showed a Washingtonia palm nearby but it is now a stump probably due to a bad winter.  One of the Planted palms looks to have been planted as a double but one trunk died a while back. It looks quite shriveled up and decayed now.


There is quite a few Palmettos in that area and I decided not to take a picture of them all, but I did notice this nice one in a shady area.  I also saw this very nice full crowned Pindo palm, probably one of the Nicest I saw on the whole trip.


I did not see too many windmills around this area however, but these ones outside some apartments looked pretty nice.  Also on the property was a nice European Fan palm clump. Prickly pear cacti were also very abundant.