Thursday October 17 2024

[Dave]

Good day, friends.

Here's a tall desert plant taken this morning just as the rising sun cleared the rooftops to the east and bathed the scene in intense low light.

It's not natural to my location near the coast, but common in, I believe, the low desert 30 or 40  miles east of me.

   

[Man From Ironbark]

Maybe it isn't a desert plant. Closer examination may reveal which palm it is. ie; could it be a cabbage tree palm?
It is a tall, slender palm growing up to about 25 m in height.
The cabbage-tree palm grows best in moist, organically rich soils, and thrives in both sheltered and well-lit situations. It is also salt, frost and wind tolerant, with populations occurring in exposed coastal situations along the east coast of Australia from Queensland to Victoria.
It has leaves plaited like a fan; the terminal bud of these is small but sweet. In summer it bears flower spikes with sprigs of cream-white flowers.
The trees accumulate dead fronds or leaves, which when the plant is in cultivation are often removed by an arborist.

Seeking protection from the sun, early European settlers in Australia used fibre from the native palm to create the cabbage tree hat, a distinctive form of headwear during the colonial era.

   

[Dave]

MFI, the cabbage tree palm does sound well adapted to a moderate coastal environment such as mine. Thanks for always being there with interesting scientific information.

But I don't think it's the palm in my photo. Based on the photos in your response and many others from a Google Image search, it appears that the cabbage tree palm exhibits a substantial length of bare trunk. The palm in my photo has almost all of the trunk hidden by thick dry-looking growth.

I'll do some more investigation on palm identification to try and confirm what variety of palm I photographed. But results of initial research suggests the Mexican Fan Palm as a possible identification.

[Man From Ironbark]

Then my work is done if you used the knowledge to go looking for other examples.
Mexican fan palm is probably more likely. As you are closer to Mexican than the east coast of Australia.

However, the Cabbage tree palm only has a clean trunk, if arborists clean the dead leaves. That part is described in my post.

[Rich]

Dave, interesting plant, with excellent lighting!