Welcome to the PALMS Lens
If you want to learn about PALMS, this lens will give you the best places to learn about them.
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PALMS
Palms have been one of the most important plants in human history. There are about 2,800 species which have provided man with seeds for food, wood for house building, leaves for clothing, and oils, waxes, and wines. In our subtropical communities today they are the most conspicuous, if not the most dominant plant, in the landscape. Virtually all palms have a tall unbranched trunk with fan or feather-shaped leaves although several genera have the trunk underground. Among the most economically important palms are the sugar palm, cocoanut palm, date palm, and cabbage palmeto. There is a particularly well-done introduction to palms at http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0451E/X0451e03.htm. Photo from http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~nf2/mexico2003/mexico2003.html
History of Palms
- The Date Palm in Ancient History
- The Date Palm has special religious, feeding, and industrial values in Ancient Egypt.
- International Palm Society
- "From the earliest times, gardeners have been preoccupied with cultivating exotic plants in alien climates."
- Florida Museum of Natural History
- "Palms are a familiar and characteristic feature of most tropical and some warm temperate landscapes."
Taxonomy of Palms and Common Genera
- Taxonomy and Nomenclature
- Kingdom Plantae (plants)
Subkingdom Tracheobionta -- (vascular plants)
Division Magnoliophyta -- Angiosperms (flowering plants)
Class Liliopsida -- Monocotyledons
Subclass Arecidae
Order Arecales
Family Arecaceae
Cultivating Palms
Here are the best sites for learning to cultivate palms.
- PalmGrower.org
- "The cultivation of palms and how to grow palms is a vast subject and palms is a large family of different species so there are many exceptions to any general rule."
- Multipurpose Palms You Can Grow
- "Anyone who becomes familiar with the beauty of palm trees and their multiple uses can be forgiven for wanting to cultivate them and to have them near for their beauty and for their products."
- Rhapis Palm Pot Culture
- "Rhapis palms are very easy to cultivate but to grow perfect specimens with no blemishes is a bit more difficult, so certain criteria have to be met"
Economic Importance of Palms
- Two Palms from Costa Rica and their
- "I live in a neotropical country, in Costa Rica, Central America, between Nicaragua and Panama. I grew up between palms."
- Economic Uses of Palms and Palm Products
- "In his book, Palms Throughout the World, David Jones describes palms as being second in economic importance amongst plants only to grasses. Given that grasses include rice, wheat and bamboo, this is no mean feat. However, one might even be inclined to question this conclusion given the much wider number of palm uses including oils, food, medicine, intoxication, wax and wood."
- Current Palm Products
- "In assessing and evaluating palms for the many products they can and do provide, it is instructive to consider the individual products as falling into three different general categories: primary products, secondary or by-products and salvage products."
- Edible Palm Fruits
- Pejibaye Palm, Coconut, Date Palm, Senegal Date Palm, African Oil Palm, Saw Palmetto, Jelly Palm, Betel Nut, Amazonian Starnut Palm, and Chilean Wine Palm
Conservation of Palms
- Palm Conservation
- "Worldwide, human development of natural environments is leading to the rapid loss of more and more plant and animal species."
- Los Angeles Palm Conservation
- "Ah, Los Angeles. City of palm trees and convertibles. Actually, scrub that. From now on, city leaders are urging, Los Angeles will be the city of oak trees and bicycles."
- Fairchild Tropical Gardens
- "Botanical science programs at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden emphasize research and Species and Habitat Conservation projects aimed at understanding and preserving tropical plant biodiversity."
- A Bird, a Tree, an Idea, a Recovery
- "Bogota: High in the mist-shrouded Colombian Andes, the yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and the Quindío wax palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense) today have a new lease on life-as do the remarkable landscapes that sustain them. Five years ago, a unique pact was forged between CI, its partners, and the Roman Catholic church to save both species, which are on the verge of extinction. Today, the alliance is lauded as one of the most successful biodiversity conservation campaigns in Latin American history."
- Why is oil palm replacing tropical rainforests?
- "In a word, economics, though deeper analysis of a proposal in Indonesia suggests that oil palm development might be a cover for something more lucrative-logging."
- Australia's coconut palms: hammock peg or noxious weed?
- "Look at this - there are no native plants left. They've all been pushed out by the coconuts," says Dr. Spencer, who heads the Australian Tropical Research Foundation. "The national parks service won't lift a finger - they're seriously underfunded, and they don't want to deal with the issue because it's so contentious."
- Palms: Their Conservation and Sustained Utilization
- "The palm family (Palmae, or more recently Arecaceae), comprising some 2200 species, is distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics. While exhibiting a tremendous morphological diversity, palms are mainly found in the understory of cloud and rain forests, occurring mostly in tropical Asia and America."
- National Tropical Botanical Garden
- "The Palmetum contains many different species of native and exotic palms (in the Araceae or Palm family), including the magnificent Corypha, or Talipot palm, which flowers just once in its lifetime, producing the most massive flower cluster of any plant; the Raphia palm with giant leaves 30 feet long which yield raffia fiber; and the betel nut (Areca catechu), whose seeds are chewed in many parts of tropical Asia."
Photo Galleries
At these sites you will find pictures to help in identifying palms.
Good Books on Palms
Betrocks Guide to Landscape Palms
Amazon Price: (as of 12/15/2009) 
Palm Trees: A Story in Photographs
Amazon Price: $39.95 (as of 12/15/2009)
An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms
Amazon Price: $32.97 (as of 12/15/2009)
Field Guide to the Palms of the Americas (Princeton Paperbacks)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/15/2009)
Florida Trees and Palms: Trees are Permanent - How to Choose and Grow Them
Amazon Price: (as of 12/15/2009)
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by Forrie
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