Palms

Palms have been highly prized and collected since the Victorian era’s Parlour Palm craze and offer today's collectors, home gardeners and indoor plant lovers a diverse range of characteristics and tolerances to environmental conditions.

Palms can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like or stemless, those with a tree-like form are usually referred to as palm trees, however, palms are monocots and closer relatives to grasses than trees. Most palms are distinguishable by their fronds, large evergreen leaves that are arranged in a crown at the top of an unbranched stem.

Palms are integral to the ecosystems of their native habitats which run the gamut from rainforests to deserts. They are of huge economic importance, ranking third after grasses and legumes in usefulness as a resource.

Garden Sign Story – The Palm Family – Arecaceae 

Palms are close cousins to grasses and lilies! They grow quite differently from other trees. 

Stems vs trunks

Palm tree stems grow taller and taller, but never any thicker. The stems lack cambium – the secondary growth tissue that allows trunks to expand, forming growth rings.

Hearts and Crowns

Palms have a heart – a single growing bud at the top of the stem. New leaves develop from the heart, in a cluster known as a crown. 

Feathers and fans

Palm leaves come in two main forms: Feather or pinnate leaves, and fan or palmate leaves. Look closely – they always have parallel veins.

Illustrations: L Elkan

Also known as the Jaggery Palm, the Fishtail Palm can grow to 12 metres and is native to Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, and Malaysia, where it grows in rainforest clearings. It is a tall, striking palm tree with fish tail-shaped fronds on long green leaves.

Jaggery Palms make sweet potted plants

This versatile palm likes moist, well-drained soil and can grow in shade, semi-shade or no shade. Although it is appreciated for its ornamental qualities in Australian parks and gardens, and can also be grown as an indoor potted plant, it has many other uses.

What is Jaggery Sugar?

The sap of C. urens is boiled until it turns into a thick, dark treacle that is used as a sugar substitute called kitul honey or kitul treacle in Sri Lanka. It is boiled further to make kitul jaggary, a hard, candy-like sugar substitute used in Indian and Western cooking.

C. urens leaves are used to make baskets in Cambodia, where it is called Tunsaè and the Cambodian peoples also make wine from the sugar that is found in the cut stalks. Elephants also like this sweet treat and munch on the palm’s leaves and stems.

Garden Sign Story – Fishtail Palm

Giving sugar, wine and liquor, the flowers of Kitul are sweet but they foreshadow death.

Stand-Out

The leaves are worth an extra look! These spectacular plants are the only palms with bi-pinnate leaves – dividing twice to form triangular ‘fish-tails’.

Image: A Sri Lankan Kitul-tapper, making the perilous climb to harvest sap from the flowers.

Live Hard, Die Young

In Sri Lanka and across the tropics, valuable flower-spike sap is harvested and processed to make jaggery sugar, or kitul syrup. Fermenting the sap results in tuak – a palm wine, and further distillation creates a potent liquor known as arrack. The palms start flowering at around twenty years old. Flowers bloom at the top of the trunk first, then emerge lower each year. Once they reach the ground, the palm dies.

Image: R. Coletti - FLICKR

Known as Arankaia to the Western Arrernte peoples, the Red Cabbage Palm is a large, flowering fan palm that grows to 20 metres. This majestic, rare plant is found only in Australia’s Palm Valley in the Northern Territory’s Finke Gorge National Park where there is a stand of 3000 or more palms, some of which are several hundred years old. It is also referred to as the Central Australian Cabbage Palm due to its range.

A gift from the Gods

The Arrernte peoples’ cultural knowledge tells us that “...gods from the high north brought the seeds to this place a long time ago”. DNA analysis backs this knowledge, showing that Livistona mariae and its closest relative Livistona rigida, which grows to the north, were separated 15,000 years ago.

Garden Sign Story – Red Cabbage Palm

Thousands of years ago, First Nations people planted palms at Australia’s red heart.

First Nations agriculture.

In 1895, German anthropologist Carl Strehlow travelled two hundred kilometres north-east of Uluru, deep into Arrernte country. He was surprised to see palms, and according to his notes, the First Nations people told him: “...gods from the high north brought the seeds to this place a long time ago”. The Arrernte people’s cultural knowledge is supported by DNA analysis of the palms, which shows they were separated from their closest relatives (Livistona rigida) around 15,000 years ago.

Image: Red Cabbage Palm grove in Finke Gorge National Park, Northern Territory. ©IP GMBH/Alamya Long Journey. The seeds must have been carried thousands of miles by Arrernte Ancestors – brought from the far north of the continent and planted in the sheltered outback valley.  

Native to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, Chamaedorea are small palms with slender, cane-like stems that grow from 0.3 to 6 metres tall.

Parlour Palms – the globetrotters of the plant world

Parlour Palms have been popular worldwide as an indoor specimen since their introduction to European gardens in 1839. It is one of the most cultivated palms in the world.

Chamaedorea elegans is perfect for container gardens

One of more than 100 Chamaedorea species, Chamaedorea elegans is a solitary slender palm that grows to around 2 metres and can be planted in the garden or in a large container.

It is a tropical to subtropical palm and needs some shelter from the cold in temperate zones, it can tolerate lower light conditions.

Known as Daranggara by the Sydney region’s Gadigal people/language group, this was one of the first palm species to be planted in the Royal Botanic Garden’s Palm Grove in 1862.

They grew in abundance around Sydney’s harbour until most of them were felled by the settlers, who harvested them for food and building materials. The settlers referred to the palms as ‘Cabbage Trees’ because the edible heart looked like a cabbage (how original!).

Garden Sign Story – Cabbage Tree Palm

This palm is Daranggara, well-known to the Gadigal – traditional owners of this land.

Palm fashion

Cabbage Tree hats were all the rage during the 1800s and 1900s, '…regarded almost as a uniform' – The Australian Woman’s Mirror, 1925.

Image: Famous for his hat, Cobb & Co coach-driver Edward Devine was known as ‘Cabbage Tree Ned’. ©J.K Moir C1880, State Library of Victoria

Precious palms

Daranggara once grew here in abundance. Their fibrous leaves were used by the Gadigal to make fishing lines and for weaving. The edible bud, or ‘heart’ was a food of last resort in times of need, as removing it kills the plant. Renamed ‘Cabbage Trees’ for their edible heart, Darangarra were relentlessly felled by early European colonists for food and building materials. Today, few remain in the Sydney harbour area, but you can still see them growing wild in many of our nearby National Parks. Daranggara (Gadigal language)

Cabbage Tree Palm Livistona australis

Image: The Cabbage Tree Palm, as featured in Curtis's Botanical magazine in 1877.

Illustration: Vincent Brooks Day & Son

Called Cottan-bimbang in the Biripi/Gathang language, the common name of this small, slow-growing sub-tropical rainforest understorey palm is Walking Stick Palm. Regularly growing to 1-2 metres, it has delicate stems that grow to around 3 cm in diameter – the perfect size for a walking stick! The Walking Stick Palm can be found scattered throughout New South Wales’ Cottan-Bimbang National Park.

A small potted palm that will grow in filtered light

The Walking Stick Palm is well suited to pot culture due to its small size and slow growth rate. It prefers moist, well-drained soils until established, then it can tolerate drier conditions.

Cottan-bimbang bush foods

Bush tucker is a great source of vitamins and small native fruits played an important part in First Nations Peoples’ diets. Cottan-bimbang’s new shoots are edible, however, harvesting them kills the plant. When a Stinson mail plane crashed in Lamington National Park in 1937, the survivors lived for nine days by eating Cottan-bimbang berries.

First Nations Peoples also used the stem for spears and fishing rods, as well as stripping the leaves and using the fine lining as a string.

Garden Sign Story – Walking Stick Palm

These little palms are stronger than they look! Slender yet sturdy, they are the perfect choice for a demanding job.

Unsung heroes

These understorey palms play a vital role in the endangered ‘Big Scrub’ rainforest community. They provide food and shelter for many small birds, mammals, and reptiles. Image: Southern Angle-headed Dragons hunt for insect prey above the forest floor, and sleep balanced on small branches or vines!

Image: ©J. Bartonik/Shutterstock

Stick the walk

From top to bottom, the straight stem is around three centimetres wide – the perfect size for a walking stick. After World War I, many of these native palms were harvested and fashioned into walking sticks for returned wounded soldiers. Cut to size, the stem was polished and the base carved and sanded into a smooth hand grip.

Image: Returned Australian soldiers – World War 1 ©KAYE FLICKR.

Named Jagarru in the Girramay language of the First Nations peoples of far North Queensland, this palm is a native of the moist, tropical rainforests of northern Queensland where the Cassowaries roam. Jagarru is a medium-sized palm growing from 15 to 25 metres. It has pleated, fan-like, almost circular leaves. Given the right conditions, it grows in stands, creating ‘fan palm forests’.

Plant your Fan Palm in a warm, shady place

When the Australian Fan Palm is juvenile it prefers heavy shade but it is sun hardy and cold tolerant (although not frost tolerant) when it reaches maturity. It is a slow-growing, desirable plant for the warm shady spot in your garden.

Garden Sign Story – Jagarru

This palm is Jagarru, the heart of Connection to Country for the Girramay people of northern Queensland.

People of the palm

Girramay means ‘where the saltwater meets the freshwater’. Girramay people have a deep connection to Jagarru — it symbolises their cultural identity and their relationship to the land. When a Girramay person dies, their grave is marked with a Jagarru leaf and a spear. This is to keep their identity and protect themselves in the spirit world.

Image: Kalkani Choolburra, a proud Girramay woman. ©S. Daniel

Rainforest gardeners

Foraging in the forest, Australia’s largest birds do a vitally important job. Cassowaries gobble up the fruits from hundreds of different plants. Dispersing seeds far and wide in their droppings, they maintain the diversity of the rainforest.

Image: Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) ©T. Purche Shutterstock

Elaeis guineensis is native to the lowland humid tropics of West and South West Africa, it is tall and slow growing with large leaves and has a single trunk that reaches up to 20 metres when planted in full sun. The Palm Oil Tree is an important source of medicines and food for First Nations Peoples.

Garden Sign Story – African Oil Palm

Palm oil is everywhere. From chocolate to shampoo, it’s the most widely used vegetable oil on Earth.

Shop for good

There is an ever-growing demand for palm oil in the food and cosmetic industries. Across the tropics, huge areas of rainforest continue to be burned and felled to make way for illegal plantations. Rainforest dwellers including Sumatran Tigers and Orangutans are losing their homes – and are now in danger of extinction. You have the power to make a difference! When you’re shopping, purchase products that contain Responsibly Sourced Palm Oil (RSPO).

Image: Asian Elephants are edging closer to extinction, displaced by illegal Palm Oil plantations. ©N. Maneekhot Shutterstock

Rainforest champions

Look for the RSPO label when you’re shopping. You’ll find it on food products including breakfast cereals, ice creams and instant noodles. It’s also on cosmetics soaps and shampoos.

Native to East Madagascar, the Gouane Palm is an ornamental plant that grows to 6-17 metres, it is a robust solitary growing palm but often forms clumps. It is listed on the IUCN Red List as endangered by habitat loss.

Gouane Palm is a sweet treat and plant medicine

The heart of the palm and the sugary fruit pulp can both be eaten. The bark and/or the fruits are used as plant medicines for the treatment of headaches, jaundice and hepatitis, as well as aiding lactation. Like many palms, the stems provide a useful fibre.

One of the largest groups of Palms

Dypsis is one of the largest genera in the palm family, containing more than 170 species which range from the tiny understory palm Dypsis minuta to the Monster Dypsis (Dypsis decipiens). There is an enormous range of diversity in form and habitat in the genus. Unfortunately, many Dypsis species are endangered or threatened with extinction because of deforestation in their native habitats.

Garden Sign Story – Dypsis Palms

We all know the Golden Cane Palm (Dypsis lutescens), but many other Dypsis palms are rare and threatened with extinction.

Dwarf Palm

The smallest palm in the world is Dypsis minuta. Its stem grows to around 40 cm at full size.

Image: A tiny Dypsis minuta flowering at around 3 cm tall! © G. Brace Palmpedia

On the brink

This hairy ‘Cousin It’ palm is native to the swamp forests of Madagascar’s southeast. Like many of the island’s Dypsis palms, its habitat is under constant threat from land clearing and logging. Over a hundred Dypsis palms are on the International Union for Conservation’s Red List of Threatened Species. The Garden’s collection includes many of these Vulnerable and Critically Endangered palms. These are a safety net for species that may otherwise be lost forever.

Image: Dypsis ambositrae, growing nearby in Bed 125, is Critically Endangered. This photo shows one of only three known locations in Madagascar. Since this photo was taken in 1999, these palms have been destroyed. ©William J. Baker Royal Botanic Garden Kew

Although the Talipot Palm is a magnificent specimen tree, First Nations Peoples have many uses for it as a food and fibre. The sap of Corypha umbraculifera is tapped to make palm wine, its leaves are used for thatching and historically as a paper product to create manuscripts.

On India’s Malabar Coast, the palm’s leaves were used to make umbrellas – just one of its leaves can shelter 10 people from the rain!

Garden Sign Story – Family of Champions

Palms have a tropical island vibe, but that’s just for show. This is a family of hard workers.

Family of champions

Millions of people rely on palms for food, building materials and more. In the wild, they are often keystone species — supporting thousands of creatures, large and small. Palms hold world records including:

25 metre-long leaf – Raffia Palm (Raffia regalis)

8 metre-long flower-spike – Talipot Palm (Corypha umbraculifera)

25 kilogram seed – Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica)

Image: Coco de Mer palms produce the worlds’ largest seeds. ©DPA Picture Archive Alliance Alamy

Far and wide

They’re a far-flung family, with around 2,600 species across the world. There are diversity hotspots in Malesia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Madagascar.

New Zealand’s only mainland native palm (a second species, Rhopalostylis baueri grows on the Kermedic Islands), the Nīkau is the world’s southernmost palm species, growing to 43° South of the Equator. It is a majestic plant that grows to 10-15 metres in coastal to lowland forests from the far north of the North Island and as far south as Ōkārito, Banks Peninsular and the Chatham Islands.

Nīkau is a hardy potted palm

Nīkau makes an excellent potted palm and can cope with low temperatures, although it is slow growing. It looks just as good as a specimen plant or mass-planted with other palms and sub-tropical plants. In its native habitat, it grows in stands.

Māori uses of Nīkau Palm

The Nīkau’s leaves were used as thatch on buildings and also provided a useful fibre for weaving.

Garden Sign Story – Nīkau

Far from the equator — the Nīkau is the most southerly palm in the world, braving gales and winter frosts!

Sub-zero palms

The Nīkau is mainland New Zealand’s only native palm. It grows in lowland forests to 43° south; just below Christchurch. The flowers are edible, and Māori traditionally use the leaves for weaving and building. Oddly, Europe’s only palm, the Mediterranean Fan Palm, grows to exactly 43° north! It’s the hardiest palm of all, braving temperatures down to -12°C.

Image (left): A manu tukutuku – a Māori kite, made by students at Pakaraka School in the north of New Zealand. A Nīkau leaf has been woven and decorated with shells and feathers. ©Pakaraka School

Image (right): A Mediterranean Fan Palm (Chamaerops humilis) growing in Sicily. ©T. Grasso CC BY-SA 2.5

The Taiwan Sugar Palm is considered to be one of the best landscape and tropical palms for large gardens. It is a clumping evergreen that grows to 4 metres. In Taiwan the palm sap is harvested from the flowering stems to make sugar.

Landscapers are sweet on the Sugar Palm

The Sugar Palm is grown as an ornamental or specimen plant in large, landscaped gardens and botanic garden collections.

Its yellow-orange flowers have a fragrance like apricot nectar, which attracts bees, butterflies and birds. The flowering stalk dies after setting seed and the plant produces suckers. The flower bud is edible, but the fruits and seeds are toxic, causing itching and irritation to the skin. Gloves should be worn when touching them and they should not be eaten.

Garden Sign Story – Taiwan Sugar Palm

It’s a mystery... a sweet perfume hovering in the warm summer air. Where does it come from?

P is for perfume

Flowers aren’t usually palms’ biggest drawcard, but Soan-tsang breaks that rule. Native to the lowland forests of Taiwan, this little palm has yellow-orange flowers that can be hard to spot in the leafy crown. But they make themselves noticed — their strong scent has been described as ‘like canned apricot nectar’!

Image: A mix of vibrant female and male flowers are borne on the same flower spike. ©E. Vaile Palmpedia

Sweet timing

The fruits are toxic, but the growing flower bud is edible, and sap is harvested from the flowering stems to make sugar.

The Mexican Parlour Palm is a small solitary trunk palm that grows to less than 2 metres tall with blue-green foliage. It is very cold and sun tolerant and can survive at extremely low temperatures.

It is found in Central Mexico and Mexico’s Northeast. Although it is one of the most hardy, cold and sun-tolerant members of the genus, it has become vulnerable in its native habitat because its foliage is harvested for the international cut flower industry.

Parlour Palms were all the rage in the Victorian era

The Mexican Parlour Palm was so-named because of its similarity to the Parlour Palm, Chamaedorea elegans. One of a number of palms including the Kentia Palm (Howea forsteriana) that often featured in 'parlours' or entrances to grand houses in Europe during the Victorian era, which was the heyday of plant hunting and collecting globally.

Garden Sign Story – Mexican Parlour Palm

Having babies is a complicated process! Chamaedorea palms need to get a lot right to reproduce.

A long wait

Even if pollination is successful, it takes two years for Chamaedorea pinnatifrons to produce ripe fruit.

Image: ©A. Haber CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Flash mob flowering

This group of palms are dioecious – each plant will have either female or male flowers. High in the Mexican cloud forests, the Palmillas have an annual synchronised flowering ‘pulse’ from March to June. The wind carries the pollen from male to female flowers, but this can be chancy. Increasing the odds of success, male flowers outnumber the females by five-to-one, and they are long-lived – staying open for up to a month.

Image: Research image showing netted female flowers on a Palmilla in the wild. ©Eric Berry

One of these things is not like the others! A member of the Meliaceae (Mahogany) Family, we are including the native Red Cedar here because we have a majestic specimen growing in the Palm Grove at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and we couldn't resist sharing it with you.

Australia’s only native Toona species, Toona ciliata is a large, deciduous rainforest tree that grows to 40–60 metres. Five species of the Toona genus are found from southern South East Asia through New Guinea and one is found in Australia.

The Australian Red Cedar was historically heavily harvested for its soft, easily worked timber, which was used in a range of building applications including veneers, panelling and furniture manufacture. Its wood has a faint, pleasant incense-like aroma which is said to repel moths.

There are magnificent specimens of Toona ciliata in various locations across the Botanic Gardens of Greater Sydney – refer to the ‘Where to find’ tabs below.

Garden Sign Story – Red Cedar

Explore the leafy pathways to find some of the oldest, rarest, and most valuable trees in the Garden’s collection.

Plant experiments

Could tropical palms be grown in Sydney? The glasshouses were full, so with 'faint hope of success' the first palms were planted out into the Garden in the 1860s. The young palms were planted here in the old Experimental Garden. Established trees provided shelter: Australian rainforest trees and other ‘exotic’ trees from the tropics including the Elephant’s Foot (Beaucarnea recurvata). Over 300 species of palms now thrive here, including tender species from the equator.

Image: The Palm Grove has a history of exotic names, including ‘The Jungle’ and ‘The Forest’. ©RBG Sydney.

Grand old giants

Look up! Towering above the palms are the Garden’s oldest rainforest trees — the Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) and the Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii).

Image: The Red Cedar was already a giant in 1910. ©Royal Botanic Garden Sydney

Our second guest star in the Palm Grove is a member of the Araceae (Arum) Family, Philodendron imbe. An evergreen climbing philodendron from Brazil, Philodendron imbe is a vigorous shrub that grows up to 5 metres. It has aerial roots that trail down, creating a mass of glossy green leaves on whatever they are growing on. Because variegated Philodendrons are rare they can be more expensive than other species’.

Enough rope

In Brazil, P. imbe’s roots are gathered from the wild and used as a fibre for making rope and baskets.

Garden Sign Story – Pimp Your Pole!

Tropical appeal or telephone pole? Palms in suburban gardens can grow larger than expected — creating a gardening challenge!

Palm Passiona

Mania for ‘exotic’ tropical plants swept Europe in the 1800s. Palms were every home’s must-have accessory... and wealthy collectors filled glasshouses to overflowing.

Image: A refined afternoon tea in the conservatory, as shown in The Illustrated London News, 1881. ©North Wind Picture Archives Alamy

Pimp Your Pole

The easiest way to transform a bare palm trunk is to let a climbing plant go wild. Tropical climbers like this Philodendron imbe and the nearby Swiss Cheese Plant (Monstera deliciosa) will happily scramble up a palm trunk. With spectacular evergreen leaves, they’re perfect for adding some eye-level greenery.

Image: These suburban palms are so tall they don’t fit in the photo! ©Fotoluminate LLC