Palm | Kelapa Sawit

This is my story of the beautiful Kentia Palm. I have had a lifelong passion for the Kentia Palm. I started growing and exporting Kentia seedlings from Norfolk Island in the South Pacific in 1985. Over the last 25 years I have gathered a wealth of knowledge about the Kentia and its history through practical experience in growing, exporting and selling the palm, traveling worldwide to visit Kentia growers and plantations, and compiling extensive historical research matter about the Kentia's rise to fame as the world's best indoor plant. My story is documented in my latest book release called "Seed to Elegance". The book details abundant illustrations and pictures spanning three centuries of the Kentia's life cycle. My blog will give readers an insight into the fascination and mystique of Queen Victoria's favorite plant. I hope you enjoy it and perhaps maybe tempted to buy the book!!

My Kentia Palm blog will also include a historical look at Norfolk Island. I was very fortunate enough to have lived on Norfolk Island for a period of 28 years. It is a wonderful Island and its people are truly remarkable. The history associated with the island's discovery is well worth reading, and it is hard to imagine the human cruelty that took place there during the Second Penal Settlement. Now a days it is an idyllic destination for tourists.

KENTIA PALMS.

In the 1700's and 1800's British navel explorers criss-crossed the oceans of the southern hemisphere. New territories such as Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island near Australia were claimed for the British Empire.
Botanists sailed aboard many of the ships. Their duties encompassed descriptions of local wildlife and vegetation with accurate illustrations of their findings. Wherever possible, seeds and living specimens were bought back to England.
Under such perilous conditions few tropical plants survived to grow or germinate in the northern climate of Great Britain. Only the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and the very few other gardens where researchers conducted plant studies, could expect to receive such precious samples. Tropical and subtropical plants remained rare and costly. To own such plants was a sign of significant wealth and status.
In 1869 Charles Moore, the director of the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney, made a brief visit to Lord Howe Island. Moore's task was to survey the Island's vegetation, including the palms that formed dense forests covering the Island's lowland area.
Moore singled out two palms that grew in abundance. They were given the botanical names Kentia Belmoreana ( after the Earl of Belmore ) and Kentia Forsteriana ( honoring William Forster, a prominent Senator in New South Wales, Australia ).
Upon his return to Sydney, Moore sent a small amount of seeds from these palms to Sir Joseph Hooker, Curator of England's Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. Hooker had been a distinguished plant collector. He was well aware of the potential commercial possibilities of successfully introducing into the British market a previously unknown plant from a distant part of the Empire.
As an enthusiastic member of the international botanical fraternity, Moore would have been informed of the changing fashions in England. Moore laid the groundwork for the Kentia's introduction with several letters published in the "Gardeners' Chronicle". This magazine was founded by Joseph Paxton in 1841. By 1870 it was England's premier gardening journal, with a readership in the thousands. Moore's later letters advocating the decorative qualities and reliability of the plant identified on Lord Howe Island were read with interest by gardening enthusiasts. Those in position to afford such a luxury, when the palms were available, turned to English nurserymen for supplies of the palm.