Our state tree: Cabbage palm is dramatic and useful
By robin robinson Key West Garden Club
When transplanting a cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto), all of the roots and leaves must be cut off. Almost all of them are transplanted from the wild as they are prolific seeders and it takes 10 years before they are large enough 6 feet to transplant.
Luckily, they transplant easily. What looks like a telephone pole is stuck in the ground and watered well. The trunk grows new roots and fronds as long as the central bud is not injured.
Planting in warm soil increases the palm's chance of survival. The state has planted thousands uggs uk along the highways as they are resilient. This Florida state symbol grows from North Carolina all the way around the Gulf of Mexico and up the west coast to Washington.
It survives forest fires. If it grows in full sun, the tall trunk produces a tightly packed pompom of fronds that is 15 feet in diameter on top of its 50 to 80foot trunk. If it grows in the shade, the pompom is looser. Key West has planted Sabal peregrina in the Arecacea family, which grows to around 25 feet.
Fronds are costapalmate. "Costa" means midrib. They look like they are doing a backbend dividing in the center to ugg boots outlet send their leaves backward into a half circle. There are up to 90 dull, darkgreen blades per frond. Their undersides are silver, and they grow directly from the trunk without a crownshaft.
The weird thing about this palm is that on some trunks the leaf stem base falls off and on others it remains, creating "boots" that catch seeds from other plants which grow in the crevasses of the crisscrossed boots. A trunk can be covered with ferns or orchids and small animals often pop out unexpectedly. Smooth trunks feel rough and fibrous but will eventually age to silver smooth.
It will grow in almost any soil. Planted along beaches, in hardwood hammocks or city streets, this sturdy palm survives. It can take a freeze and weather a hurricane. It enthusiastically welcomes a drought or salt water or wind.
Creamy, white flowers bloom in midsummer creating a beautiful inflorescence which turns into black seeds by fall and are devoured by the birds. It is the home of the cabbage palm caterpillar (Litoprosopus futilis), which can devour all of the inflorescence thereby depriving Floridians of sweet palmetto honey.
The pink and black caterpillar will enter a home to pupate and it will use anything to make a cocoon rugs, drapery, stuffed furniture, even fiberglass. Botanists have a hard time introducing predators because the caterpillar will regurgitate orally and the material is a deterrent to predators. Eventually, it becomes the owlet moth, a 2inch, fawncolored creature with two black spots on the wing tips.
The dead skirt on these palms also harbor beasties such as cockroaches and rats, so it should be removed, but not before it turns brown as the palm reabsorbs the nutrients from the frond. Giant palm weevils can inflict damage, especially after transplanting. Ganoderma butt rot can enter if the trunk of the tree is injured. There is no cure.
Cabbage palms fronds were used by the Seminole to roof their chickees, hat their heads and sweep their floors. Panamanians use them to make Panama hats. Early settlers cut them down to use as logs for cabins, pilings for docks and for their "hearts" to make a cabbagelike salad. Eating hearts of palm is frowned on now as companies are decimating Mexican and South American forests of Sabal palmetto in order to can them. Cutting the hearts out naturally kills the palm.