Alternate name: Cabbage Palm, Swamp Cabbage

Family: Arecaceae, Palm view all from this family

Description Medium-sized, spineless, evergreen palm with stout, unbranched trunk and very large, fan-shaped leaves spreading around top.
Height: 30-50' (9-15 m) or more.
Diameter: 1 1/2' (0.5 m).
Leaves: 4-7' (1.2-2.1 m) long and nearly as broad. Folded into many long, narrow segments; long-pointed and drooping; coarse, stiff, and leathery; splitting apart nearly to the stout midrib; with threadlike fibers separating at edges; shiny dark green. Very stout, stiff leafstalks 5-8' (1.5-2.4 m) long; green, ridged above, with long, fibrous, shiny brown sheath at wedge-shaped base, which splits and hangs down with age.
Trunk: gray-brown; rough or ridged.
Flowers: 3/16" (5 mm) long; with deeply 6-lobed whitish corolla; fragrant; nearly stalkless; in curved or drooping, much-branched clusters arising from leaf bases; in early summer.
Fruit: 3/8" (10 mm) in diameter; nearly round berries; shiny black; with thin, sweet, dry flesh; 1-seeded; maturing in autumn.

Habitat Sandy shores, crowded in grooves; inland in hammocks.

Range Near coast from SE. North Carolina to S. and NW. Florida, including Florida Keys.

Discussion The trunks are used for wharf pilings, docks, and poles. Brushes and whisk brooms are made from young leafstalk fibers, and baskets and hats from the leaf blades. An ornamental and street tree, it is the northernmost New World palm and one of the hardiest. Formerly, plants were killed in order to eat the large leaf buds as a cabbagelike salad. The names are from the Spanish palmito, meaning "small palm."