Sabal belongs to the New World, and is distributed from the Bermuda Islands and the South Atlantic and Gulf states of North America through the West Indies to Venezuela and Mexico.
Of the eight species now recognized four inhabit the United States; of these two are small stemless plants.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Spadix short; fruit subglobose, 1-celled; seed-coat light chestnut color. 1. S. Palmetto (C). Spadix elongated; fruit often 2 or 3-lobed, with 2 or 3 seeds; seed-coat dark chestnut-brown. 2. S. texana (E).
1. Sabal Palmetto R. & S. Cabbage Tree. Cabbage Palmetto.
Leaves 5°—6° long and 7°—8° broad, dark green and lustrous, deeply divided into narrow parted recurved segments, with ligules 4′ long and more or less unsymmetrical at apex; petioles 6°—7° long and 1½′ wide at apex. Flowers: spadix 2°—2½° long, with slender incurved branches, slender ultimate divisions, and thin secondary spathes flushed with red at apex and conspicuously marked by pale slender longitudinal veins; flowers in the axils of minute deciduous bracts much shorter than the perianth, opening in June. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, subglobose or slightly obovoid, gradually narrowed at base, 1-seeded, about ⅓′ in diameter; seed light bright chestnut-colored, ¼′ broad.
A tree, often 40°—50° and occasionally 80°—90° high, with a tall clear trunk often 2° in diameter, sometimes branched by the destruction of the terminal bud, divided by shallow irregular interrupted fissures into broad ridges, with a short pointed knob-like underground stem surrounded by a dense mass of contorted roots often 4° or 5° in diameter and 5° or 6° deep, from which tough light orange-colored roots often nearly ½′ in diameter penetrate the soil for a distance of 15° or 20°, and a broad crown of leaves at first upright, then spreading nearly at right angles with the stem, and finally pendulous. Wood light, soft, pale brown, or occasionally nearly black, with numerous hard fibro-vascular bundles, the outer rim about 2′ thick and much lighter and softer than the interior. In the southern states the trunks are used for wharf-piles, and polished cross sections of the stem sometimes serve for the tops of small tables; the wood is largely manufactured into canes. From the sheaths of young leaves the bristles of scrubbing-brushes are made. The large succulent leaf-buds are cooked and eaten as a vegetable, and coarse hats, mats, and baskets are made from the leaves. Pieces of the spongy bark of the stem are used as a substitute for scrubbing-brushes.