Cabbage Palm
Sabal Palmetto
The Cabbage Palm is the Florida State Tree. This member of the palm family is named for the large bud or "cabbage" at the top of the trunk, which can be eaten as a vegetable. The loss of the bud causes the death of the palm.
Palms do not grow like pines, oaks, and other trees. Once the trunk starts to elongate, there is very little increase in girth. A cross section of the trunk shows the internal structure to be homogeneous; on the other hand, a cross-section of the trunk of an oak would show inner, darker heartwood and outer, paler sapwood, both with growth rings created by an annual increase in girth.
The Cabbage Palm grows from 50 feet to 80 feet in mature height, with a straight clear trunk up to two feet in diameter, covered with shallow ridges and fissures. In many individuals, the old petiole bases persist, giving the trunk a rough appearance. The palm grows in a variety of habitats, from moist to dry, throughout the state.
The palm leaves, known as "fronds," are nine to fourteen feet long, four to six feet of which is the stout, unarmed petiole. The blades are from five to eight feet long, deeply divided to a partial midrib (costapalmate) at the base. The segments are narrow, with long, threadlike filaments along their edges. The small white flowers are borne in huge, branching panicles from among the leaves. The fruit is a drupe about one-third of an inch in diameter, with a fleshy coating and a hard brown seed.
The "wood" is light, soft, pale brown, and containing numerous hard fibers. The trunks are used for pilings and sawed into disks for ornamental table tops. Baskets, mats and hats can be woven from the fronds.
Visit our Tree Campus homepage for more information.
Tree information provided with permission of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for more information visit https://www.fdacs.gov/.
Cabbage Palm (Sabal Palm) trees were planted in Honor of our Retirees' and their years of Services:
Beverly Barker, 33 years
Patti Cason, 20 years
Kathy Crawford, 11 years
Teresa Dew, 23 years
Susan Geoghagan, 33 years
John Gifford, 13 years
Nancy Gonzalez, 21 years
Linda Hall, 27 years
Mike Hawkins, 17 years
Alain Hentschel, 13 years
Deborah Hinton, 19 years
Longin Kaczmarsky, 10 years
Suzanne Kempke, 14 years
Cynthia Kennedy, 4 years
Dr. Mary Anne Laney, 8 years
Jeff Lee, 4 years
Donald Martin, 9 years
Stephanie Masterson, 27 years
Michael Meehan, 32 years
Melissa C. Miller, 30 years
Peter Morgan, 11 years
Gregory Odom, 26 years
Cassandra Polite, 17 years
Mario Rosario, 22 years
Marcia Redding-Sanders, 7 years
Sharon Silcox, 30 years
Kim Smith, 12 years
Angela Sockwell, 7 years
Ken Stuck, 29 years
Caroline Tingle, 26 years
George Williams, 9 years
Ingrid Wright, 13 years
Donna Wyatt, 8 years