Jim,
The inheritance of traits such as round leaf would be controlled by many genets interacting. These 'forms' of fortunei are probably caused by some uncommon genetic recombination. 'Wisan', which I'll call 'round leaf', is simply one extreme of the range of traits that Trachycarpus fortunei can display... It's still fortunei. It's the same idea as us calling Trachycarpus wagnerianus a species, when it is clearly just a stable dwarf form of Trachy fortunei. The DNA sequences seem to lend support to this as well. Unfortunately, we don't have the ITS sequence from a 'Round leaf' fortunei nor from a 'tesan' fortunei to show that these are all the same thing.

We know that Nainital (formerly Takil) is fortunei. But, it also seems that these nainital palms are adapted to growing in mountainous environments and therefore might be able to take a bit more cold... They're still fortunei. It is a stable species with perhaps more variability then is usual, perhaps owing to the large range of the species and the diversity of the collections made. The entire genus is very closely related and it's this closeness that has led to many inproper descriptions of species being made. I'm not sure, but if I had to name the proper species off the top of my head (without checking the phylogeneitc study) I'd have to say that the following are the valid species: T. fortunei (including nainital, wagnerianus, wisan, tesan, misan, caespitosa, etc. etc.), T. nanus, T. takil (including T. urkense), T. princeps, T. martianus (inc. latisectus), T. oreophilus. I think that T. geminisectus is too new to classify.

Another way to think about this is to consider something like Opuntia polyacantha, where the same species ranges from pads 3" to 4" across with small yellow flowers, to plans with pads up to 12" with bright red flowers or even white flowers. That's a great deal of variability

Jim,
The inheritance of traits such as round leaf would be controlled by many genets interacting. These 'forms' of fortunei are probably caused by some uncommon genetic recombination. 'Wisan', which I'll call 'round leaf', is simply one extreme of the range of traits that Trachycarpus fortunei can display... It's still fortunei. It's the same idea as us calling Trachycarpus wagnerianus a species, when it is clearly just a stable dwarf form of Trachy fortunei. The DNA sequences seem to lend support to this as well. Unfortunately, we don't have the ITS sequence from a 'Round leaf' fortunei nor from a 'tesan' fortunei to show that these are all the same thing.

We know that Nainital (formerly Takil) is fortunei. But, it also seems that these nainital palms are adapted to growing in mountainous environments and therefore might be able to take a bit more cold... They're still fortunei. It is a stable species with perhaps more variability then is usual, perhaps owing to the large range of the species and the diversity of the collections made. The entire genus is very closely related and it's this closeness that has led to many inproper descriptions of species being made. I'm not sure, but if I had to name the proper species off the top of my head (without checking the phylogeneitc study) I'd have to say that the following are the valid species: T. fortunei (including nainital, wagnerianus, wisan, tesan, misan, caespitosa, etc. etc.), T. nanus, T. takil (including T. urkense), T. princeps, T. martianus (inc. latisectus), T. oreophilus. I think that T. geminisectus is too new to classify.

Another way to think about this is to consider something like Opuntia polyacantha, where the same species ranges from pads 3" to 4" across with small yellow flowers, to plans with pads up to 12" with bright red flowers or even white flowers. That's a great deal of variability

put it better then i ever could 😀

Well said Paul. :happy3:
Another hardy palm with a great deal of variablity is Chamaerops humilis for much the same reasons.

Cheers, Barrie.

Washingtonia is another,I guess we are well past the point of finding out if a palm like Wisan grew buy itself at sometime before it became know as a trait that fortunei exibits,maybe in time Garry can tell us if the palm he is calling Wisan is a stable form of this type or if it reverts back to fortunei form in time,or if these are already mixing with fortunei again where he is,we have already seen what has happened with Takil,Martin Giggons has even said that most fortunei sold these days probably have some "Takil blood"in them.