Hi
Have never seen one in natual environment But must live up to it's name Searle Bros had some around 3 feet and they recommended "rich but well draining!. I've been using a mixture of C peat,wood chips and pumice for altifrons Have had the seedling since Oct,2001. Still is only slightly over a foot.Sure lives up to it's other description "slow growing"lol
There are pix on the web of all four specie which appear to be wild specimens. Would love to see a mature one of any
them
gary

In 1990, during a visit to Malaysia, I went searching for Johannesteijsmannia magnifica in the wild. I searched at one of the localities cited in the original publication of this species, namely Sungai Lalang south-east of Kuala Lumpur. I walked along a logging track for about 6 hours without sighting it and was just about to turn back when I met a man on a motorcycle. It turned out he was a forest dweller (Orang Asli) and when I showed him a picture of J. magnifica in a book he indicated it was not far away and took me to his family's camp in a nearby rainforest gully. Not only was the camp in a grove of J. magnifica, but their huts were all thatched with its fronds! I managed to get some photos in the late afternoon, though in this deep gully the light was very poor. I was using Kodachrome with a tripod and seem to remember some shots had 10-second exposures. Below are scans of 3 of the pics. Sorry about the quality.

The Orang Asli group cut rattan for a living. The next morning they shifted camp, rolling up all the palm fronds into a large bundle and carrying it up to the logging track, together with their bundles of rattan, to get a lift on a logging truck to a new campsite.

As for the palm's environment, it was in lowland rainforest deep beneath the canopy and the palms seemed to be mainly in the bottom of the gully though not right in the stream bed. The soil was typical of such sites, raw, slippery clay soil beneath the litter layer. The climate data for Kuala Lumpur would be applicable to this locality.

As you can see in one of the pics, the palms are huge. I think I estimated the leaf blades at up to 2.5 metres long and 1.5 m wide, with petioles about 2 m long. The stems were only up to about half a metre high, concealed in a mess of old decaying leaf bases. The 3rd pic shows a palm after its fronds were harvested. I imagine they recover from this as long as it is not done too frequently. But then it's possible that by now this whole area of forest has succumbed to the creeping tide of oil palm plantations.

Those pictures are really nice I appreciate you sharing them. And I thank you for all the info you supplied.

Tony from Oz
Thanks very much for that first had info. Especially for the climate zone locale. As far as I've been able to tell
all four specie are lowland understory palms. I take it you saw none of the other specie in this location?? Do they also occur at high altitude??
Any Salacca magnifica??
I'm tring to grow an altifrons seedling and it is really slow going. Guess I'll stick with warm shady and very humid
year around as was suggested to me.Apparently they are naturally slow growing.
Wish I'd been with you !! Would love to see that area
along with N Guinea,Malasia ,Tropical Australia and on and on lol
Thanks again !! At last I have a real climate locale.
gary

Now if I could just find one to buy. Thanks to everyone.

www.rainforestcollection.com in west Fort Lauderdale/Davie has them for sale.

David
I got mine from Palm and Gardens in Delray.Had no luck at all with seeds so went with a seedling. Occasionally they have both altifrons and magnifica.
Rainforest has the largest selection of sizes but brace yourself for the price lol.
I've been trying for the last 3 years to find J.perekensis."joey on a stick" I can't even locate one within the US. Kew in the UK doesn;t even list it on the inventory.
I had a friend in Singapore who thought he knew where he could find some seeds but turned out to be altifrons (sigh)
Have you ever seen the mature altifrons at Fairchild??
Couldn't locate a magnifica but they did have a Salacca magnifica Another WOW specie.
gary

I have never seen the one at Fairchild but I would like to. palms and gardens was out of business the last i have checked and I havent received an email back from Rainforest yet.

Nice story!! Thanks so much! We have a nice-sized one here at Selby Gardens in the display house. Haven't seen signs of flowering yet. It's up to maybe 15 feet high, close to the roof.
kevin

Heres my little J.alfrons.I planted it out under high tree canopy.Does anybody have personal pics of these ?

Here is a link that might be useful: My pic's

David
I heve pix from 01 still in seed cone and 03 both taken in Oct. Don't have one from this year but just add one new
frond and it would look the same lol
I have no idea how to post to the list but they're on disc so I could E mail them if you like.
Gary

I found a small plant for very reasonable price. This is the first plant ive found in 1 year of searching. thanks for all the picks and info.