New Zealand and coastal California share many aspects of climate — especially our temperature range and humidity. They tend to get more rainfall over there, especially in the warmer half of the year, than we do.

Many of the plants the Kiwis can grow, we Californians can, too. Palms are no exception. Our friends over at Palmtalk.org have shared a video shot at an established palm garden near Auckland called Landsendt.  It’s “palm porn” in as literal a sense as any G-rated media can be. Remember, virtually anything seen in this video will also thrive in San Francisco and mild coastal areas of the Bay Area and central California. And it’s all safe for work viewing.

Landsendt sub-tropical gardens, Auckland New Zealand

Some of the special plants visible are the colorful-crownshafted Geonoma undata, from high altitudes in the Andes; majestic Ceroxylon quindiuense and C. parvifrons, also from the Andes; groves of New Zealand’s native nikau palms, Rhopalostylis sapida; and cycads like Encephalartos, Macrozamia, and Cycas. Other non-palms spotted include a Pandanus sp. from New Guinea’s highlands, a large-leafed Ficus species (F. dammaropsis? F. auriculata?), and — can it be? — a Cecropia species.

Coconut crowns make an exceptionally graceful silhouette against the tropical skies of Puna, Hawai'i

Polynesian-introduced coconuts thrive in the lava along the Puna Coast of Hawai’i’s Big Island.

We found an interesting article about the ecological change wrought by introduced coconut palms on a previously coconut-free island in the central Pacific Ocean.

It’s sad to think that the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), a lovely icon of the tropics, can also be a human-introduced invasive species on pristine islands like Palmyra. This atoll, directly south of Hawai’i in a belt of heavy rainfall just north of the equator, has a rich indigenous forest on its sparse land area (4.6 square miles) — and an extraordinary coral reef and lagoon habitat underwater.

The newly coconut-dominated portions of the landscape attract far fewer birds than the native forest, and thus lack the guano-enriched soils of the native forest. Even where native forest plants grow near the coconuts, their foliage, flowers and fruits are less-nutritious than they are when growing in coconut-free parts of the island. Such impoverishment puts dependent organisms like birds and insects at a disadvantage and is likely to reduce biological diversity.

Palmyra Atoll is an unincorporated territory of the USA, administered as a National Wildlife Refuge by the Interior Department.

Palmyra Atoll makes a tracery of green in the vast Pacific. Photo by Ethan Roth