DENDROLOGY. 



139 



CHAMiEROPS. 



Polygamia Dioecia. Linn. Palmae. Juss. Weak tonic, farinaceous. 



Cabbace Tree. Chamcerops palmetto. 



From its lofty height, this 

 vegetable is considered in 

 the United States as a tree ; 

 and upon the shores of the 

 ocean, where it grows, it is 

 called Cabbage Tree. Its 

 northern limit is near Cape 

 Hatteras, from which it 

 spreads to the extremity of 

 East Florida, and probably 

 encircles the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Farther south this tree is 

 not confined, as in the United 

 States, to the immediate 

 vicinity of the sea. 



A trunk" from 40 to 50 

 feet in height, of an uniform 

 diameter, and crowned with a regular and tufted summit, gives 

 the cabbage tree a beautiful and majestic appearance. Its leaves 

 are of a brilliant green, palmated, and borne bypetioles from 18 

 to 20 inches long, nearly triangular and united at the edges ; they 

 vary in length and breadth from one to five feet, and are so 

 arranged that the smallest occupy the centre of the summit, and 

 the largest the circumference. Before their developement they 

 are folded like a fan, and as they open, the outside sticks break 

 off and fall, leaving the base surrounded with filaments woven 

 into a coarse and flimsy russet web. The base of the undisclosed 

 bundle of leaves is white, compact and tender. It puts forth in 

 March long clusters of small greenish flowers, which are 

 succeeded by a black, inesculent fruit, about the size of a pea. 

 In the Southern States the wood of this tree, though extremely 

 porous j is preferred to every other for wharves ; its superiority 



PLATE XXII. 



Fig. 1. The top of a cabbage tree with its fruit. 



