Main & Sub Catagories:
Leaves (canopy)
- Entire Canopy (most or all leaves)
- Most severe on oldest (lowest) leaves:
- Affecting youngest leaves only
Flowers & Fruit
Trunk
- Gummy sap flowing from trunk; usually discolored (“bleeding”)
- Holes in trunk
- Longitudinal splitting of trunk
- Tapering of trunk near the top (pencil-pointing)
- Shriveling of trunk
- Fungal conk (basidiocarp) present on lower trunk
- Trunk collapses on itself; trunk rotted at point of collpase
- Leaf canopy falls off trunk
- Outer “bark” of trunk sloughs or peels off
Where on the palm are the symptoms/problems appearing?
Leaves (canopy)
Entire Canopy (most or all leaves):
- Wilting
- Most or all leaves necrotic, but still erect in canopy
- Leaves reduced in size
- Canopy growth at sharp angle to trunk axis
- Canopy topples from the trunk, usually without warning; rotted, black fibers evident
- Collapse of almost all leaves in canopy (more than wilting)
- Leaves tattered
- Leaflets missing or partially missing from leap tips
- Chlorosis or necrosis of distal portion of leaves close to high voltage power lines
- Leaves uniformly light green
- “Spotting” on leaves
- Leaf bases (and often dead leaf blades) covered with light salmon-pink spores
Most severe on oldest (lowest) leaves:
- Chlorosis (shades of yellow)
- Leaves discolored, but not necessarily chlorotic; usually shades of red to dark
brown or gray - Leaflets have translucent yellow/orange or necrotic spotting or yellow-orange discoloration
- Leaflets of oldest living leaves are necrotic on one side of rachis only (or only some leaf segments necrotic if it is a fan palm) and petiole/rachis has reddish-brown to brown or black streak and vascular discoloration evident in cross-section of petiole
- Tip or marginal leaf or leaflet necrosis
- Chlorotic and/or necrotic gray, brown, or black “spotting”
- Gummy exudates (“bleeding”) from multiple small 5 to 8 mm (1/5 to 1/3 inch) wounds in palm leaf bases; galleries in leaf petioles
- Old to middle-aged leaves have necrotic “skeletonized” patches with only veins and surface layers of leaf intact; underside of leaf necrotic patches typically covered in tubes of insect frass
- Leaf kinks and hangs parallel to trunk
- More lower leaves dead than normal; upper canopy leaves may be wilted
Affecting youngest leaves only:
- Spear leaf (youngest unopened leaf) discolored or collapsed
- No new leaves emerging
- New leaves chlorotic
- New leaves reduced in size, but older leaves full-sized
- New leaves have sharply hooked leaflet tips
- Spear (and often other new leaves) fail to open normally
- Transverse puckering or transverse translucent streaking on leaflets
Flowers and Fruits
Trunk
- Gummy sap flowing from trunk; usually discolored (“bleeding”)
- Holes in trunk
- Longitudinal splitting of trunk
- Tapering of trunk near the top (pencil-pointing)
- Shriveling of trunk
- Fungal conk (basidiocarp) present on lower trunk
- Trunk collapses on itself; trunk rotted at point of collpase
- Leaf canopy falls off trunk
- Outer “bark” of trunk sloughs or peels off
- Back to Palm Problems Home



