PALM FAMILY 29 



sugar, fibers of many kinds, utensils, and weapons. Even 

 raffia and rattan are procured from climbing palms of the 

 tropics, and the importance of the date palm is so great 

 that legend ascribes its origin to the clay left over after 

 the creation of Adam. 



Florida has more than a dozen native palms; several 

 grow only in the extreme southern part of the state, and 

 our pinnate-leaved palms are all confined to that region, 

 though the royal palm formerly grew farther north in the 

 peninsula, and the naturalized coconut palm thrives even 

 beyond Palm Beach. 



The handsome cabbage palm is a characteristic tree of 

 Florida landscapes, as the low growth of the saw palmetto 

 is a characteristic undergrowth of our pinelands. The 

 cabbage palm, or palmetto, grows not only in Florida, 

 but also along the coastal plain as far as the islands be- 

 low Cape Hatteras, It adapts itself to the driest and the 

 wettest soils, and anchors itself against the winds by push- 

 ing its stout stem down into the earth, a process whose 

 peculiar beginning is easily seen in the roots of young seed- 

 lings. 



The common name of the saw palmetto is due to the 

 saw-toothed leaf-stalks. The fragrant flowers of this 

 palm, whose thick stems usually creep along the ground, 

 perfume the air, and its fruit was formerly a staple food 

 of Florida Indians. 



The needle palm and the bluestem are attractive palms 

 of our swamps, and their leaves were rightly described by 

 earlier writers as "elegant.^' The leaf-sheaths on the stout 

 trunk of the former are oddly armed with slender spines, 

 like brown knitting-needles, among which the short in- 

 florescence is almost lost. 



A rare fan palm of great beauty, Acoelorraphe Wrightii 

 (Paurotis), discovered in the southern part of the penin- 

 sula late in the last century, grows in dense clumps of tall, 

 very slender stems. This and other of our native palms 



