User:Trimming Arizona/Washingtonia robusta

The quote below obtained from: Dangerous Palms - Dave's Garden (davesgarden.com) does not specify Washingtonia robustus as one of the types of palms that loses spines as it gets older but the experience of palm tree trimmers like the pros at Trimming Arizona have 36 years of trimming Washingtonia robusta's and verify it to be the case that the thorns deplete to zero as the tree becomes taller, typically above 30-40 feet.

Below the first quote is the description section from Wikipedias page titled Washintonia robusta

Examples of palms with spines are many, though most seriously spiny palms are truly tropical in nature and I do not have any of these in my yard. Some of these palms are primarily spiny when young, possibly to give them some defense against predation while still small enough to be considered food, and losing the spines at maturity when, as trees, are less interesting to herbivores. However, other palms are so spiny, even in adulthood as to have spines on nearly every surface and structure. These palms tend to have the most vicious spines and should really be avoided, or planted far from walkways.

(page from Wikipedia that Trimming Arizona wishes to update) Description W. robusta grows to 25 m (82 ft) tall, rarely up to 30 m (98 ft). The leaves have a petiole up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long, and a palmate fan of leaflets up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) long. The petioles are armed with sharp thorns. The inflorescence is up to 3 m (10 ft) long, with numerous small, pale orange-pink flowers. The fruit is a spherical, blue-black drupe, 6–8 mm (1⁄4–5⁄16 in) diameter; it is edible, though thin-fleshed.[6]