Butterfly palm.

Lovely bit simular to our Parlour Palms.

Its sold also as a houseplant- but this particular palm hates the indoors. I've never seen one doing well. Its a very common palm in Florida and the tropics. The San Francisco bay area is right at the limit of what a cool winter it can take. Plus Penny- they will never reach the size of tropical butterfly palms- not even close- but a small one is still nice in the landscaping.

I had an out door one but the frost turned the leaves brown I was always having to cut lots of leaves off in the end it was binned no leaves or new growth.

Yes they are nice in land scaping .

I can't believe it's growing there! It's a very tender palms which usually hates the SF Bay Area! lol!

There's so many large ones growing here in my neighborhood. I've posted pics on GoY in the past if you do a search. One that I pass on the way to work, I calculate is 35' (11 m) tall.

I took that photo off the internet where I had posted it in 2009. That was the guy who lived in Mission San Jose who told me he liked it better then soucal. That's why Andy,I asked you months ago if that was you?
Anyway's,I remember he posted that on a local plant board,and a few jealous locals told him "It didn't look healthy"..I told him it looked great and It was the first I ever saw in the bay area that was actually years old.

So,- he seemed like a nice guy too- he was insulted by the other "experts" and deleted that photo from cloudforest board. I luckily enough had saved it and posted it on another UK plant board,growingontheedge.net. in 2009.
I dont have that hot sunny spot for one anymore. But,I think he proved it can be done.

This plant doesn't look too healthy. It's just a miracle it's growing in the SF Bay Area. I wonder if it's still alive, though.

Dypsis baronii is the best one for the SF Bay Area. My friend who lives in San Diego now used to have a very large clump of D. baronii. It grew very fast and into a very large clump!

No,that Dypsis is great! All he should have done is pruned off the worn fronds before he took a photo. It actually has a nice thick trunk. That photo was taken in January- part of the "Yellows" that get palms in Cali up and down the state.
He had in that same yard a beautiful Purple King palm as I recall.
A lot of people who lived in SF-Berkeley were jealous and drove the guy off the board- might as well have- with the "Its not like in Hawaii"..what in California is?

D. lutescens is naturally golden-yellow. This is why it's called Golden Cane Palm. In shade it tends to look greener; however, it doesn't grow as quickly. The ones I see here in high-shifting sun looks excellent! They have super green leaves with a little yellow on the petioles.

My tall D. lutescens by my back door got burned in the last heat wave. It's putting out some nice new fronds, though.

I absolutely hate when people are so mean and jealous on the garden website boards! People should be encouraging because we're all plant gardening people. I really can't understand it. :>((

Several years ago I got into lots of arguments with people on several garden websites regarding Delonix regia growing and flowring in Southern California and in San Diego. These haters said it definitely couldn't be grown in California, Arizona because it's too dry, cold! Of course, I had to prove these hating people wrong! LOL! This is why I very, very rarely make definitive statements...Beacuse I'm almost always proven wrong.

Hey- Im there with you Andy. I wouldnt rule out anything in soucal if a person tries hard enough. I even said that Theobroma might do well in soucal in a highly protected spot/courtyard..being winters in a near z11 California is so short. Well,i was shouted down by people who of course never tried it. Yet,they knew I was wrong?
So, a week of that and TWO people then posted photos of Theobroma in pots that had doubled in size in soucal.
Uhuh!..You notice too Andy- those types never say they admit they were wrong. Never say that.

Yes, definitely experienced that.

Theobroma would be extremely difficult here. It's not the cold per se, it's the dry air that would cause them to die.

I had a Theobroma cacao, it died from the dry air during Santa Ana Wind conditions. I even sprayed it a lot...it didn't help.

If its not the cold- then they could be grown in a patio or courtyard. Or in a wet shade garden. The kind with tree ferns,palms and misters. Maybe. I would think the Balboa park lattice garden would be a great place to try.

When the humidity gets down to 4 or 5% and extremely hot, it's very, very difficult to prevent the leaves from trees and plants from desiccating.

Misters only sometimes can help...if left on all day.