- The Palmetto is also a passenger rail line run by Amtrak as part of their Silver Service and Palmetto service.
The cabbage palmetto, Sabal palmetto (Walt.) Lodd., is a common palm tree of the southeastern United States. Its range is throughout the Florida peninsula, and extends into the Florida panhandle, Georgia, and South Carolina along the coast, even up to southernmost North Carolina. A disjunct population also reportedly exists on Cape Hatteras. The cabbage palmetto may grow up to sixty feet in height.
The cabbage palmetto is extremely salt-tolerant and is often seen growing near the ocean. It is extremely popular in cultivation for its tolerance of this salt spray, as well as for its tolerance of cold temperatures as low as 7ºF (-14ºC).
Also called the sabal palmetto, it is the state tree of South Carolina and Florida. The growing heart of the new fronds, also known as the terminal bud, gives the tree its "cabbage" name, since this is extracted as a food. This was commonly eaten by Native Americans. However, this practice is very destructive, as it will eventually kill the palm, because the terminal bud is the only point from which the palm can grow and without this bud, the palm will not be able to replace old leaves and will eventually die.
Closely related species include Sabal Minor, the dwarf palmetto, which is popular among palm enthusiasts for its extreme cold tolerance to approximately 0ºF (-18ºC), and is believed to be second only to the needle palm, Rhapidophyllum Hystrix. Also related are Sabal Bermudana, a very similar-looking palm native to Bermuda, and Sabal Mexicana, which is native to Mexico. Both S. Bermudana and S. Mexicana are very similar in appearance to S. Palmetto, and the untrained eye would find it very difficult to distinguish these 3 species.
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