140 



Saw Palmetto 



V. SAW PALMETTO 



GENUS SERENOA HOOKER 

 Species Serenoa serrulata (Michaux) Hooker 

 Chamarops serrulata Michaux 



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 var>' 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 

 flat on the other, 1.5 cm. wide or less, its margins armed with numerous short, 



