Cabbage Palmetto Traditional Cache

This Cabbage Palm(etto) is close to the road, easy to reach as long as the ditch is dry. Please BYOP and check the specifics about the hide at the bottom of the page.

Cabbage Palmetto

Sabal palmetto, also known as palmetto, cabbage palmetto, blue palmetto, Carolina palmetto, common palmetto, swamp cabbage and sabal palm is one of 15 species of palmetto palm. It is native to the deep southern United States, as well as Cuba,the Turks & Caicos Islands, and The Bahamas.

In the United States the native range of Sabal palmetto is the coastal plain of the lower East Coast from southeast North Carolina southward to Florida and west along the Gulf Coastal plain to Texas.

Description

Sabal palmetto grows up to 65 feet or 20 metres. Starting at ½ to ⅔ the height the tree develops into a rounded, costapalmate fan of numerous leaflets. A costapalmate leaf has a definite costa (midrib) unlike the typical palmate or fan leaf, but the leaflets are arranged radially like in a palmate leaf. All costapalmate leaves are about 0.20 inches or 5.1 millimetres across, produced in large compound panicles up to 8.2 feet or 2.5 metres in radius, extending out beyond the leaves. The fruit is a black drupe about .5 inches or 1.3 centimetres long containing a single seed. It is extremely salt-tolerant and is often seen growing near both the Atlantic Ocean coast and the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Sabal palmetto is hardy to USDA zone 8, and has been reported to have some cold hardness down to −13 °C or 8.6 °F. Maintenance of the Cabbage Palm tree is very easy and very adaptable. The cabbage palmetto is known to tolerate drought, standing water and brackish water. Even though this palm is drought-tolerant, it thrives on regular light watering and regular feeding. It is highly tolerant of salt winds, but not saltwater flooding.

Historical background

The cabbage-like terminal bud has been eaten as hearts of palm. The bristles on the sheaths of young leaves have been made into scrubbing brushes. The trunks have been used as wharf piles. On June 28, 1776, Charleston patriots under William Moultrie made a fort of palmetto trunks and from it defended successfully against the British in the Revolutionary War.

Sabal palmetto is a popular landscape plant known for its tolerance of salt spray and cold. Because of their relatively long establishment period and prevalence on ranchlands, few, if any are grown from seed in nurseries. Instead, established plants are dug in the wild with small rootballs since virtually all the severed roots die and must be replaced by new roots in the new location. Most leaves are removed at this time to reduce transpiration. It is the state tree of South Carolina and Florida. Most references rate the species as hardy to USDA hardiness zone 7b or 8a. Cabbage palms have excellent hurricane resistance, but are frequently over-pruned for a variety of reasons.

The growing heart of the new fronds, also known as the terminal bud, gives the tree its "cabbage" name, since this is extracted as a food and tastes like other undifferentiated plant meristem tissue, such as the heart of a cabbage or artichoke. It is one of several palm species that is sometimes used to make heart of palm salad. Heart of palm was commonly eaten by Aboriginal Americans. However, extracting the heart will kill this species of palm, because the terminal bud is the only point from which the palm can grow and without this bud the palm will not be able to replace old leaves and will eventually die.

The cabbage palm is remarkably resistant to fire, floods, coastal conditions, cold, high winds and drought. Despite this, recent mortality has been caused by Texas phoenix palm decline (TPPD) a phytoplasma currently found on the west coast of Florida.

Sabal palmetto trunks appear in two different conditions, which can be confusing (see photo). When leaves die, the leaf bases typically persist for a while, creating a spiky, "basketweave" effect. These remnant leaf bases are called "bootjacks" or "boots", for short. The name stems from the "Y" shape that was reminiscent of devices used to aid individuals in removing boots.

Transplanted palms are sometimes deliberately shorn of these bootjacks. Taller specimens are more likely to have lost their bootjacks and appear relatively smooth and columnar. The loss of bootjacks is a natural, if poorly understood, phenomenon as the palm does not create a leaf abscission zone so the loss of the leaf bases results from some other physical or biological process.

Symbolic use

The sabal palmetto is the official state tree of both Florida and South Carolina (the latter is nicknamed "The Palmetto State”).

A silhouette of a palmetto (S. palmetto) appears on the official flag of the US State of South Carolina.

Two palmettos (S. palmettos) appear in the official great seal of the US State of Florida.

The annual football rivalry game between Clemson and South Carolina is known as the "Palmetto Bowl”.

The cache is a tied in, camoed, small, "small" pill bottle, that you have to push hard to both open and close. It holds only a rolled log with a rubber band and a tiny plastic zip lock bag to keep it all dry. Please BYOP and try to keep track of everything. The rubber band is handy on your finger while you log, as long as you remember to put it back on the rolled log before you seal it in the bag. That way it's easy to extract the log from the bottle without using tweezers, that are apt to ruin the plastic.