Distribution. Sandy soil in the immediate neighborhood of the coast from the neighborhood of Cape Hatteras and Smith Island at the mouth of Cape Fear River, North Carolina, southward near the coast to northern Florida; in Florida extending across the peninsula and south to Upper Metacomb Key, and along the west coast to Saint Andrews Bay; most abundant and of its largest size on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.
Often planted as a street tree in the cities of the southern states.
Leaves dark yellow-green and lustrous, 5°—6° long, often 7° wide, divided nearly to the middle into narrow divided segments, with thickened pale margins separating into long thin fibres, with ligules about 6′ long; petioles 7°—8° long, 1½′ wide at the apex. Flowers: spadix 7°—8° long, with stout ultimate divisions; flowers in Texas appearing in March or April in the axils of persistent bracts half as long as the perianth. Fruit ripening early in the summer, globose, often 2 or 3-lobed; seeds nearly ½′ broad and ¼′ wide, dark chestnut-brown, with a broad shallow basal cavity, and a conspicuous orange-colored hilum.
A tree, with a trunk 30°—50° high, often 2½° in diameter, and a broad head of erect ultimately pendulous leaves. Wood light, soft, pale brown tinged with red, with thick light-colored rather inconspicuous fibro-vascular bundles, the outer rim 1′ thick, soft, and light colored. On the Gulf coast the trunks are used for wharf-piles, and on the lower Rio Grande the leaves for the thatch of houses.
Distribution. Rich soil of the bottom-lands on the Bernado River, Cameron County, and near the mouth of the Rio Grande, Texas, and southward in Mexico in the neighborhood of the coast.
Frequently planted as a street tree in the towns in the lower Rio Grande valley.
Trees, with stout columnar stems and broad crowns of erect and spreading finally pendulous leaves. Leaves flabellate, divided nearly to the middle into many narrow deeply parted recurved segments separating on the margins into numerous slender pale fibres; rachis short, slightly rounded on the back, gradually narrowed from a broad base, with concave margins furnished below with narrow erect wings, and slender and acute above; ligule elongated, oblong, thin and laciniate on the margins; petioles elongated, broad and thin, flattened or slightly concave on the upper side, rounded on the lower, armed irregularly with broad thin large and small straight or hooked spines confluent into a thin bright orange-colored cartilaginous margin, gradually enlarged at base into thick broad concave bright chestnut-brown sheaths composed of a network of thin strong fibres. Spadix interfoliar, stalked, elongated, paniculate, with pendulous flower-bearing ultimate divisions and numerous long spathes. Flowers perfect, jointed on thick disk-like pedicels; calyx tubular, scarious, thickened at base, gradually enlarged and slightly lobed at apex, the lobes imbricated in the bud; corolla funnel-formed, with a fleshy tube inclosed in the calyx and about half as long as the lanceolate lobes thickened and glandular on the inner surface at the base, imbricated in the bud; stamens inserted on the tube of the corolla, with free filaments thickened near the middle and linear-oblong anthers; ovary 3-lobed, 3-celled, with slender elongated flexuose styles stigmatic at apex; ovules lateral, erect. Fruit a small ellipsoidal short-stalked black berry with thin dry flesh. Seed free, erect, oblong-ovoid, concave above, with a flat base depressed in the centre, a minute sublateral hilum, a broad conspicuous rachis, a minute lateral micropyle, and a thin pale chestnut-brown inner coat closely investing the simple horny albumen; embryo minute, lateral, with the radicle turned toward the base of the fruit.