A strange little plant that looks nothing now like it will when mature, but is displaying its evolutionary history: Sabal minor, the dwarf palmetto! I currently have 3 seedlings though will likely only keep one once they start getting adult leaves.
This small fan palm is one of the most cold-hardy and widespread palm “trees” in the US, ranging all the way up to zone 7 in southern Oklahoma, and will dwell anywhere that has near-constsntly moist, sandy to swampy soils. They can reach up to 6 feet tall and adult leaves bear long petioles and fronds at the end that splay out and split in all directions like a ragged oriental fan.
Despite being called trees, palm really don’t fit that label; even the biggest ones barely develop what one could call actual wood, and they’re a somewhat unique development in their plant grouping: the monocots. Look at these leaves and you’ll see that relation: their cousins are the grasses, the irises, the daylilies, and other plants that begin their life as usually one slender leaf rather than two.

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