Native Palms of Georgia

Even though we’ve been having a fairly mild winter, who doesn’t long for summer landscapes and warm areas with palm fronds waving? Someone recently asked about native palms so I think now is a good time to talk about them. Georgia has four species of native palms, all of them in the Arecaceae family and native mostly to the Coastal Plain, although one has Piedmont range. Two of them can be grown well into the Piedmont (and gardeners do grow them, I have one myself!).

Cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto) on Jekyll Island, GA

Let’s start with our only “tree” palm. Cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto) is a trunking palm up to 60 feet tall. Its natural range in Georgia is the maritime coastal plain. Flowers appear on branched clusters up to 6 feet long, blooming May-July, and the fruits are shiny black drupes. The name "cabbage palm" comes from its edible immature leaves, or "heart," which has a cabbage-like flavor.

One thing that was confusing to me initially is the appearance of the trunk: sometimes it would be all smooth, sometimes it would be halfway smooth, and sometimes it wasn’t smooth at all! The old leaf bases do not always naturally detach from the trunk; these are called ‘boots.’ In landscaped areas, the gardener might remove them manually but there are some health risks to the tree in doing so (I've included a picture at the end of this post with the smooth look.)

Blue stem palmetto (Sabal minor), shown at left, is shrubby with no visible trunk above ground. It has large fans (leaves) like the other palms, but the petiole of the leaf has no teeth (which is useful in comparing it to the similarly-sized saw palmetto which does have sharp teeth). The clusters of tiny white flowers turn to clusters of small, hard blue fruits. This is one species which has native range into the Piedmont; I grow it in my backyard, although my county is not part of its actual range.

I actually got this species by accident – the plant that I bought was labeled ‘needle palm’ which is another cold-hardy species. It’s a handsome plant and looks cool near the swimming pool, but I’m actually starting to see a lot of seedlings pop up around the garden.

Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) closely resembles blue stem palmetto but it does have a couple of differences. Its prostrate stems can sometimes be visible above ground and it can grow into a large mound, creating the distinctively beautiful sweeps of shrubby palms in pine flatwoods and maritime forests. The petiole of the leaf has numerous sharp teeth, hence the common name "saw palmetto." This species is not hardy enough to grow outside the Coastal Plain.

Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens)

The needles of Rhapidophyllum hystrix

Needle palm (Rhapidophyllum hystrix) is also a shrub; it is distinguished by the sharp spines found at the base of mature leaves, at the center of the plant, persisting even after the leaf is gone. This palm does not have an elongated cluster of flowers; the tiny flowers are held in tight clusters at the base of the plant, with male and female flowers on different plants. Fruits are reddish brown. This species will grow in the Piedmont; one of our members had a beautiful specimen at Big Canoe in Pickens County and these pictures are of that plant.