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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.

Cabbage Palm Tree
Cabbage Palm at the river
Two Cabbage Palms in the sky
Cabbage Palm in the parking lot




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/.

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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