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Washingtonia filifera (or very possibly its hybrid cousin, Washingtonia filibusta) is known for being a tough survivor, but I wasn’t expecting to see it treating a popular beach like its own personal germination tray!
While walking along Playa de Las Teresitas in Tenerife, I looked down and noticed an unexpected miniature forest underfoot. You can see exactly what caught my eye: dozens of tiny seedlings casually popping up through the pure beach sand, right next to the wooden boardwalk.
It’s definitely not your standard premium potting mix, yet there they are, finding a way to thrive.
Even wilder, some of these little guys have clearly been roughing it in the sand for quite a while. Take a look at this.
This older, established specimen has already pushed out proper palmate leaves covered in those fantastic, curly white threads. If you look closely at the sand around it, you can even see the scattered black seeds just sitting on the surface, waiting for their turn to sprout.
Of course, the source of this sandy nursery wasn’t hard to find. As you can see in the wide shot, the towering parent palms are standing guard over the beach. Botanically speaking, they present a bit of a fun field mystery. They are absolutely too thick to be Washingtonia robusta. They lean heavily toward filifera, but their trunks aren’t quite as massive as typical purebreds. This leaves us with two likely possibilities: they are either pure filiferas that have grown a bit slimmer due to the harsh, sandy beach conditions, or they are filibusta hybrids.
Regardless of their exact lineage, seeing their offspring naturally colonizing the beach sand is a fantastic reminder of how resilient palms really are. Have you ever stumbled across a wild, unexpected palm nursery like this on your travels?
