Meet the Cabbage Palm
Cabbage Palm | Sabal palmetto
How do you know it’s me?:
I live as a shrub for the first decade or so, building a strong trunk, before growing vertically.
I am an evergreen fan palm, which means my leaves are fan-like and include segments that are deeply divided.
My trunk is generally straight or slightly curved, and highly textured with broken leaf stems. My trunk also has a fibrous texture.
My leaves have a long pointed “midrib” or center spine that terminates in a point.
My tiny flowers compose long white, drooping plumes.
I produce bundles of shiny, dark, pea-sized fruit.
Filaments hang loose around my leaf canopy, like hairs.
How big do I grow?: 10’ - 50’ tall and 10’ - 15’ wide.
Sun-seeker or shade-lover: Full sun to part shade.
Where I prefer to put my roots: I am highly salt tolerant and prefer medium to dry soils with good drainage.
Hardiness: Zone 7-11
Original home: I am native to the southeast United States, and Cuba.
Colors: I produce long panicles of yellow to white blooms and fall blue-black fruit displays. My foliage is evergreen.
When I bloom: Summer.
Wildlife friends: My fragrant flowers attract a variety of bees and other pollinators that carry the pollen from tiny flower to flower. Birds and mammals (like the raccoon) love my fruit. My dying fronds (that hang down below the live leaves) are a preferred roosting habitat for certain bat species, and certain butterfly species (such as the Monk Skipper) rely on me as a larval host. My trunk is full of quality fibrous nesting material used by many.
Flora Fun Facts: I am the state tree of Florida and South Carolina. I have been called an "ecosystem in a tree" because of the habitat I provide for other plant species (such as wild grape, Virginia creeper, and ferns) as well as many animal species (bats, birds, squirrels, snakes, lizards, insects, and more).
More Info: One of the most ubiquitous native plants in the southeastern US, the Cabbage Palm has been a tree crucial to the survival of (historically) Native American tribes and (presently) a huge variety of native wildlife. Imagine a palm tree, and you're brain likely defaults to the tropical rounded crown and spiny trunk of the Sabal palmetto.
Palm (Arecaeae family)
Commonly found in pinelands, swamps, moist hammocks, and floodplain forests in southeast coastal plain regions and throughout Florida.
Main characteristics that define this plant from the Saw Palmetto: a pointed rather than flat leaf attachment, smooth leaf stems (not spiny), and fibers that hang loose around the fronds.
Widely used by Native American tribes in the construction of houses, arrows, drying racks for animal skins, and more! Most Seminole homes were built from this plant.
Its "boots" host a variety of plant species. This is the pocket created at the base of each old leaf stem along the trunk.
Fruit and “heart of palm” (the growing tip) are edible. However, harvesting this growing tip will kill the tree.
Sabal palms do not need their fronds trimmed. Old fronds provide wildlife value and nutrients to the tree, and will eventually fall off on their own.
