PALM. 



PALMACE^E. 



This is one of the largest and most important orders of 

 plants known toman. The one thousand* or more known 

 species are distributed over the tropical and semitropical 

 regions of the entire world. Only a few species, including the 

 palmettos of the Gulf States and the fan palms of Calfornia, 

 are native in the United States. 



Palms have tall, columnar trunks without branches, but 

 with crowns of large leaves at their summits. Their forms 

 and proportions are often magnificent. The wood is soft, 

 light, more or less porous, difficult to work, and not strong. 

 The shapes of trunks sometimes cause them to be locally 

 prized for piles, while the porous qualities of the wood are 

 such as to repel teredo t There are many by-products, as 

 fruit, nuts, oil, etc. The rattan or cane palms of India and 

 the Malayan Islands sometimes grow to a height of two 

 hundred feet and are imported into Europe and America for 

 chair-bottoms and the like. Thus far, the palm is almost ex- 

 clusively valued in the United States for landscape effects. 

 Most palms seen at pleasure resorts are not native. They have 

 been transplanted. 



Sudworth | enumerates the following as attaining to the 

 dignity of trees in the United States: 



Cabbage Palmetto (Sabal palmetto]. Sargent Palm (Pseudophcenix sargentii). 



Silvertop Palmetto ( Thrijiax mierocarpa}. Fanleaf Palm ( Washingtonia filiftra). 



Silktop Palmetto ( Thrinax pan'iflora). Royal Palm (Oreodoxa reqin). 

 Mexican Palmetto (Sabal mexicana). 



* Coulter, "Plants/' p. 241. 



t " Marine Wood Borers," Trans. Am. Soc. C. E., Vol. XL, pp. 195 and 204. 



| " Check List," U. S. Forestry Bui. No. 17. 



A. L. Wallace, " Palm Trees of Amazon and their Uses," London, 1853. 



191 



