Lady palm
Rhapis excelsa (Thunb.) A.Henry
- light
- Part sun
- water
- Medium
- tall
- 3.1 m
- wide
- 3.2 m
Arecaceae
Also called Little Lady Palm, Broadleaf Lady Palm
Formerly Chamaerops excelsa, Rhapis divaricata, Rhapis javanica, Rhapis kwamwonzick, and 2 more
When it flowers
Not known yet in the tropics: too few flowering observations to read a season from.
Read from iNaturalist photographs of it in flower. A month counts at 50% of the best month's flowering share (smoothed over three months) and 10% of its flowering count, from at least 100 flowering observations in the band.
If a child, a pet or anyone may have eaten a plant, contact a doctor or vet straight away, or call the National Poisons Information Centre (AIIMS, New Delhi) on 1800 116 117, free and open 24 hours.
Something wrong with it?About it
- Grows as
- Shrub or treeKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- Wet tropicalKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- China (Guangdong) to NC. VietnamKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Part shade (3 to 6 h)Read from RHS and NC State Extension, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources. Sources differ: RHS part; NC State Extension part, shade
- Height
- 2.5 m to 3.7 mRead from RHS and NC State Extension, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources. Sources differ: RHS 2.5–4 m; NC State Extension 4–12 ft
- Spread
- 2.5 m to 4.0 mRead from RHS and NC State Extension, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources. Sources differ: RHS 2.5–4 m; NC State Extension 6–15 ft
- Water
- Average: moist, well drainedRead from RHS and NC State Extension, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources
- Flowers
- YellowRead from RHS and NC State Extension, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources
- Coldest it survives
- 1.7 °C (USDA zone 10b)Read from RHS and NC State Extension, checked: the middle of what its sources sayHalfway between its 2 sources, which differ. Sources differ: RHS 10 °C; NC State Extension -6.7 °C
Not known yet: heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (12)
- Spanish
- palmera bambú
- Chinese
- 棕竹, 觀音棕竹, 大叶南苏
- Portuguese
- palmeira-ráfia, Ráfia
- Czech
- rapis ztepilá
- Japanese
- カンノンチク
- Russian
- Рапис высокий
- Thai
- จั๋งญี่ปุ่น
- Chinese (China)
- 棕竹, 观音竹
- Finnish
- japaninpensaspalmu
- Slovak
- prútovnica štíhla
- Afrikaans
- Japanese vredespalm
- Turkish
- Salon Palmiyesi
Where this comes from
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-24, CC0-1.0 (observation counts)
- Wikidata, read 2026-10-24, CC0-1.0
- Kew's checklist, read 2026-10-24, CC-BY-4.0
- RHS, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- NC State Extension, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-24, CC BY-SA 4.0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- 3D model: Rhapis excelsa (built for Vanagrha) by Vanagrha, own
A fact “checked by a majority of its sources” was settled by a vote of the pages it was read from, not by a person reading it; one marked “one source” rests on that page alone. Anything else not marked checked has not been checked yet. Where nothing is known, the page says so rather than guess.