PHOTO # 12
For Moapa Palms Reports
A Map showing the water ways and Colorado Trade routes of the Moapa. Green spots show approximate loci for various Palm groves. Once again, J. Cornett considers all of these to be adventive whether ancient or recent.
Since this is the only natural location in the world for this palm his logic therefor demands that any truly endemic groves must be extinct! Yet the entire area is full of fan type palm fossils...which appear to match Washingtonia filifera. Cornett claims these fossils must be Sabal because they lack spines on the petioles then notes that spines are almost always absent on the distal ends of living Washingtonia filifera. All known fossils incluce only the distal ends in Palm specimens. Clearly there is a flaw in Cornett's logic here.
He also notes elsewhere, that nearly all W. filfiera leaves are spineless after a tree approaches a certain age or height. A fact which clearly suggests cursorily that most leaves in a grove would probably be spineless anyway. I believe with Dr. Axelrod, that the fossils are probably Washingtonia which suggests the Washingtonia has survived in the Southwestern United States for up to 70 million years. Note: No palm genus may be identified through fossil leaf remains alone, except for the genus Phoenix. This is a major flaw in Cornett's entire contentions that the fossils are not Washingtonia.