140 



Saw Palmetto 



V. SAW PALMETTO 



GENUS SERENOA HOOKER 

 Species Serenoa serrulata (Michaux) Hooker 

 Chanucyops scrridata ^Nlichaux 



ERENOA, named in honor of Sereno Watson, long curator of the Gray- 

 Herbarium of Harvard University, contains only one species, a char- 

 acteristic little palm which inhabits dry soil from North Carolina to 

 Florida and Texas, extending northward into Arkansas. It only 

 becomes a tree in its extreme southern range in peninsular Florida, sometimes 

 attaining there a height of 6 meters, its trunk erect or inclined; great areas of 



Fig. 106. Saw Palmetto, southern Florida. 



pine-lands are covered with it further north, where its stems are almost invariably 

 underground, often 3 or 4 meters long, and send up the tuft of leaves from the 

 end. 



The leaves are deeply palmately cleft into numerous segments i to 2 cm. wide, 

 which are again 2-cleft; they vary from 3 to 7 dm. broad; the ligule is small and 

 thin, the leaf-stalk usually longer than the blade, convex on one side and nearly 

 fiat on the other, 1.5 cm. wide or less, its margins armed witli numerous short, 



