Palm Trees of the Lowcountry
June 2008 Palmetto Perspective
by Dianne Faucette, Master Naturalist

Here in the Lowcountry, we are privileged to have three native palm trees—Sabal (cabbage) palmetto, saw palmetto, and dwarf palmetto. Unlike most trees (both evergreen and deciduous) that show rings in a cross section, palms have scattered vascular bundles instead of rings. An excellent example can be seen at Honey Horn where a tree stump was left for observation. This scattered vascular bundle is unique to monocots, which have parallel leaf veins and only one seed leaf. Other examples of monocots are grass, lily, pineapple, banana and orchid plants.  (The dicots, such as oak, maple and hickory trees, possess rings and have two seed leaves.)  

The palms bear flowers in spring and fruit in the fall. The fruits were eaten by Native Americans and are still eaten by deer, squirrels, raccoons and birds.

Our largest palm is the cabbage palmetto (the South Carolina state tree), normally rising to 40 or 50 feet tall. It is a sturdy tree with a fibrous trunk, and withstands hurricanes better than any of our other trees. Many people wonder why some of these trees have the forked leaf bases still attached to the tree after the leaves die off, while others have a smooth trunk. There are three elements that may pull the bases off: animals, wind storms, and grooming by tree nurseries. These leaf bases provide habitat for roaches (perhaps this is why they are locally called “Palmetto bugs”). The name “cabbage palm” was derived from “swamp cabbage” which referred to early pioneers’ food made from the heart of palm--the end bud at the top of the tree. Once the heart is removed, the tree dies.

Unique to the cabbage palm are loose thread-like fibers along the edges of leaf segments. Lack of these threads is the most obvious difference between the cabbage and the dwarf palmetto. A dwarf palmetto tree can grow as high as 15 feet, but whatever trunk it may have is underground. Various parts of this tree have been used as medicines for eye irritation, high blood pressure and kidney ailments; to make bread, thatch homes and baskets.

The saw palmetto shrubs mainly grow in the forests, such as on Pinckney Island, and can become quite thick. Their leaves are strictly fan-shaped, radiating out from blunt leaf stalks. The stalks have sharp spines, like a saw.  The black fruits that ripen in the fall have been used in drugs to treat enlarged prostate glands, particularly in Europe. 

Both the cabbage and the dwarf palmetto have pointed stalks from which the leaves grow, distinguishing them from the saw palmetto with its blunt stalk. Identifying a palm is as easy as looking for the threads on the cabbage palm (regardless of tree size) or the saw spines on the saw palmetto.