The Butias are becoming more and more widespread in the UK now. They all look fairly similar and indeed some outlets sell one specie as another.
Butia Yatay is well known in the US, but not so much here. In the UK Butia Capitata is more usual. The two look very similar when young. However as they get larger the differences start to emerge.
Yatay has more blue in it's leaves. Yatay has much longer leaves and Yatay grows a slimmer trunk. Yatay is as cold hardy as Capitata (-10 unprotected easily). Yatay however is incredibly heavy. A 1 foot pseudo-trunk specimen will have you in a sweat when carrying it. Their trunks must be really dense to make them this heavy (some other Butias are really heavy too).
I have seen some Yatays with clipped leaves... clipped to half their length in an attempt to make them look interesting??? I guess it is just another of those bizarre pruning exercises which serve nothing other than to stress the plant.
Water all Butias well in Summer and make sure they get good sun or else they will push out shrunken leaves making them look very weird indeed. No fleece protection is necessary in Winter unless you go below -10c every night :)
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