Palm collector Chalermchart Soorangura:
“I like species that are threatened in the wild”
He earns a living as an IT program manager, but his passion is in plants. Chalermchart Soorangura (39): “When I am crazy about a plant, I can become obsessive. I think of it all the time.” His enthusiasm has taken shape in his Palmetum in the Thai province of Kanchanaburi. There, in a jungle-like resort along the river Kwai Noi, owned by his father, he grows his collection of about 350 species of palm trees. “I used to have 700 species, but half of it didn’t survive.”
Many of those that did survive are grown from seed. Chalermchart: “I like to see the development of a plant, to watch each stage, to see how it changes from seedling to maturity.” Walking through his garden, he talks about every palm tree as if it is a personal friend. He caresses its leaves, points at its fibre and admires its height and width. Origin, history and botanical name of every individual tree pop up easily. All his words and gestures testify of his self-chosen label of ‘palm lover’.
As he has a full-time job in Bangkok, he only visits his distant garden once a fortnight. Much of the care for the trees he has to leave to his gardener, whom he trains in the knowledge of palms, bromeliads, gingers and cycads. Chalermchart, generous in sharing both his passion and his plants, makes sure his gardener fills a box with babies of palms for me to take home.
Chalermchart started collecting palms in 2005, just to landscape his yard in Bangkok. “Originally I wanted to grow ferns, but I soon realized they need a lot of attention and care that I could not give. I looked at the palm trees in surrounding gardens, but they were all very common, whereas I knew there are over 3,000 species. So I started to buy seeds of rare species and within the first year I already had 200 species. I had Thai friends in online groups, who were very knowledgeable. We started exchanging seeds and plants. Then the popularity of palm trees decreased in Thailand. But not in me, I am still crazy about palms. So now I communicate with experts in international online groups, like those of the International Palm Society, or on Facebook. There I meet people with different experiences, from Hawaii, Australia, Madagascar, la Réunion or Guyana.”
The thickly-wooded hills surrounding his family’s resort keep no secrets from him anymore. He has climbed them all and found many palms, gingers and other plants. Sometimes he joins experts in search expeditions to Malaysia, Indonesia or the South of Thailand. But given his IT-job, he says: “I spend more time on research than on the actual planting or growing.”
My question about the top priority on his wish list for palms gets a quicker reply: “Lodoicea maldivica”. That is the legendary ‘sea coconut’ with the largest seed of all palms. In its original habitat, the Seychelles, it has been lost from the wild and now only grows in protected parks. Seeds are not easy to obtain, and certainly not easy to send by mail.
January 2017, by Karolien Bais, video Mijnd Huijser