Okay, seeing as how I got such great help last time (an accurate ID only 5 hours after posting - thank you!), I decided that instead of looking through all the photos of palms on Dave's Garden (18 pages!), I would just put up a post here. Alright, you plant identifying geniuses! I bought these at a moving sale. The girl didn't know what they were, but she lived in a basement suite, so I thought I'd take a chance (as my user name says, I don't get much sun in my room). The one on the left is some type of palm isn't it? I thought maybe because it's survived in low light, that it might be a type of Chamaedorea? The one on the right isn't a palm at all, is it? It looks to me like a Dracaena marginata, but what do I know?
I think you are right in both cases. That palm looks to me as Chamaedorea elegans or Parlour palm. But let's see what other people think.
I agree with optimist. Looks like a Chamaedorea elegans (parlor palm) and a Dracaena marginata, possibly tri color.
Sweet! I've been totally wanting a Chamaedorea for a long time, because I like palms, but my room doesn't get enough sun for most kinds. I've never seen one in a store here, and I'd been actually thinking lately about buying some seeds on the internet, though I've had some bad experience there - one person I ordered from, out of 6 sets of seeds, not one of them sprouted! And it can't be all my fault, because almost all of the seeds sprouted from another person I ordered from. Poor Dracaena! It gets called a palm, it gets called a bamboo - why can't it just get called a dracaena and have people buy it? I thought Dracaena marginata needed more light than I could give it, so I've never bought one before, but that girl had it in a basement suite, and it looks fine, so it should be quite happy in my window. Thank you all very much!
Ash, Believe it or not, many indoor palms don't need a lot of light. Too much sun can burn the leaves. I have a few parlor palms that are in a west facing window with three big trees out front, the palms mainly get bright light and very little direct, mostly dapple and they haven't complained yet:) The dracaena should do well in that kind of light as well. If the light is ever too strong, you can always move them off to the side of the window a little is all. Your plants look pretty healthy and I really like your dracaena. If it has more then two colors, it "might" be a tri, but it's hard to tell for sure from the photo. I'm sure they will both get real good care!
I am growing couple palms from seeds. The one of them is Thurston fan palm - Pritchardia thurstonii. It's doing good in a shade.
The sun comes in my window for about an hour around 11 am. No worries about the light ever being too strong! I've successfully grown orchids, Hanukkah cactuses :) , Dracaena sanderiana (planted in dirt!), and primulas. Lots of green growth on my billbergia and tillandsia, but no flowers yet. Most of those plants are outside for the summer, and the rest of the ones in the photo are too new to make a judgment on. There are my Scindapsus pictus cuttings on the bottom left, that Bluewing so helpfully ID'ed for me! Like my high-tech gro-lamp? (Thrift store lamp with the shade removed.) The D. marginata is inside as I read they don't like it below 55°F/13°C, but the Chamaedorea is outside as I read they can handle it down to 28°F/-2°C! They are healthy - the girl took good care of them. I'm still going to repot them, though - I repot everything as soon as I get it. Especially the palm, as it is in an unglazed clay pot - no wonder she said it needed watering all the time! The D. marginata is definitely a tricolor - the leaves are pinkish-red on the edges. Optimist, are the palms that you grew from seed mature plants yet, or are they still seedlings? The Pritchardia thurstonii has awesome inflorescences! I wonder if it will get them indoors? (I assume if you are in Ottawa you are growing it indoors.) Where did you buy them? It's good to know reliable sources for seeds.
It is still seedling, I attached the picture. I am not even hoping for flowers indoors. I bought seeds online from this website: http://www.seedrack.com/ Got good germination rate.
