The Coontie - Northern Florida's Answer to the Sago

Ever seen a picture of a beautiful mature sago palm?  They are so impressive!  Have you ever seen a beautiful one in northern Florida?  Only the ones for sale in garden shops.  What happens when we plant them here?  They suffer from cold damage and end up blighted from disease.  Truly pitiful.  Yet every homeowner thinks their landscape would not be complete without one.  Tisk-tisk. If you want to grow a sago, move to southern Florida.

Up here we have our own native son version of the sago.  It doesn't get as big, but it is a beautiful edging plant that is extremely hardy.  It's the coontie.   Explore the rest of this article by clicking the Read More link below.



 Coonties were popular with indigenous and New World settlers because the seeds could be made into flour - if you knew how to remove the toxins.  Coontie bisquits were so popular our forefathers nearly ate them to extinction.  If you buy a coontie and plant it in your yard you will have a true friend, handsome and pleasant company.  Plant a few.  We have in our butterfly garden at Alpine Groves.  So here's the coontie's story starting from the one little fellow we photographed during a winter cleanup.

Here's our male coontie showing its cone, which looks like the cone of a fir tree - if fir trees' cones were orange...  Coonties are dioecious - meaning each plant is either male or female.  You never know what the sex is until the reproductive equipment start to show itself.  We hope the other coontie in the garden is female, but she hasn't "come out" yet. 
  

Female coonties produce pods of seeds like this one.  It looks like a cluster of heirloom tomatoes with brown tops.  Each "tomato" is actually a clump of four seeds.  When the seeds are separated they look like bright orange "candy corns."  The coontie is endangered, so please don't help yourself to a seed pod if you happen to find one.  It's best to leave the seeds to germinate naturally.  Anyway, they are devilishly hard to germinate by hand.  So why not leave the seeds in situ and buy yourself a coontie plant (or six - so you know you've got both sexes) from a native plant dealer?  Don't be put off if the price tag seems a little high.  They are wonderful accent shrubs that never need pruning, don't grow too large, and are disease and pest resistant.  They grow slowly but once established, you'll enjoy them.  In fact, if there was more consumer demand for them the price might go down just a tad.  It's a niche market at the moment.  Of course, being harder to propagate than your average garden shrub, they may always be more expensive, but well worth the investment and the patience.  Here's why.

Coonties are a great favorite of atala butterfly larva.   Don't worry that the caterpillars will ruin your plants.  They do very little damage, and that damage is quickly repaired.  The next spring, you'll have a delightful crop of butterflies - especially if you plant the fritillary's nectar favorites like pentas or tall verbena.  You can buy these flowers at regular garden centers - but please avoid those that have been treated with systemic pesticides, like nicotinoids.  Nicotinoids have a deleterious effect on honeybees.  Until Lowes, Home Depot, and the other big box stores stop buying such plants, you'll have to shop carefully.  Maybe go to the county extension center's plant sales during their spring or fall festivals.  This is your chance to vote with your wallet. for less poisons in the environment.  And once you have that lovely, evergreen and perennial habitat for the butterflies, be good to them and don't use pesticides.  Organic treatments such as soapy water should work nicely, as does hand removal of any "bad" bugs. 

How could you ever be content with a sickly sago now that you know you can have coonties!