© Janet Davis

March 23 2005

For me, being on holiday isn’t much fun unless I cross off at least one garden from my “to-do” list. Thus it happened that I spent a sun-soaked day early this month at Miami’s beautiful Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Established in 1938 by plant explorer David Fairchild and his friend, New York accountant Colonel Robert Montgomery, it stretches over 83 acres in the town of Coral Gables, just south of the big M. Taking time to visit the garden made a delightful break from the hard work of swimming, reading and sleeping.

When you garden in a temperate climate, you tend to be most familiar with plants hardy to your own zone. For me, that means white pines and sugar maples. So it was with a great sense of discovery that I wandered through Fairchild’s magnificent collection of palm trees, especially those concentrated in the Montgomery Palmetum. Said to number some 400+ species from 193 genera, it was a revelation to any visitors whose previous palm tree experience might have started and ended with coconuts (Cocos nucifera). Indeed, there were beautiful coconut palms, including a spectacular dwarf with bright orange fruit called ‘Dwarf Red Spicata’ and one called ‘Maypan’, bred to be resistant to the Lethal Yellowing Disease that has ravaged palm populations throughout the western hemisphere. But there was a bewildering assortment of other palms too.

Palms are members of the Palmae family (also called Arecaceae). There are some 2500-3000 species of palm trees throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, contained within about 205 genera. True palm enthusiasts can join the International Palm Society (www.palms.org) which includes a subscription to Principes, a quarterly journal all about palms. The IPS turns 50 next year (2006).

Palm comes from the Latin word “palma”, meaning palm tree. Originally, even the Latin seems to have come from the word for “palm of the hand”, and describes the flat, hand-shaped – or “palmate” – leaves of many palm trees. In ancient times, palms were carried or worn to symbolize victory or triumph, thus the palms of Palm Sunday which are still used to commemorate the triumphant arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem over a carpet of palm branches spread by those who believed him to be the Messiah.

Bailey Palm – A Fine Fan Palm

Palms are divided into three types according to their leaves. Pinnate or feather palms have long feathery leaves with paired leaflets coming off a central petiole, much like a fern. Fan palms, on the other hand, have circular or paddle-shaped leaves and the individual sections are called leaf segments, rather than leaflets. Costapalmate palms bear traits of both previous leaf types.

As a photographer, however, for me there’s no contest: I love fan palms for the almost hypnotic effect of the fan-shaped fronds.

My favorite palm at Fairchild was the majestic Bailey palm, Copernicia baileyana. It was named in honor of Liberty Hyde Bailey, one of the world’s foremost botanists and palm experts and the first dean (in 1904) of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell (now Cornell University). His interest in palms was piqued on a 1910 trip to Jamaica, leading to a passion for palm exploration that resulted in 45 scientific papers between 1930-1949. The Bailey Palm is native to woodlands and savannahs in Cuba. Salt-tolerant, it was used extensively by the Fairchild’s first landscape architect, William Lyon Philips, as a prominent feature in the low-lying areas of the garden. In fact, the Bailey Palm Glade is a favorite stop for wedding photographs and has even been used as a location in the television show CSI Miami .

Just a few tropical thoughts as we await spring.

Janet Davis

For more information, visit the website of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

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