books – Pondering Palmettos

Pondering Palmettos

an interview with Jono Miller

Winslow Homer’s ‘The Turkey Buzzard’

HE PALMETTO, ALSO KNOWN AS THE CABBAGE T palm, is an iconic part of the southeastern landscape and lore. It is the state tree of both Florida and South

Carolina. Palms were essential to a major victory in the

Revolutionary War, and have been the subject of paintings by some of America’s most acclaimed artists, including several members of the Hudson River School as well as Winslow Homer. They are featured in an Elvis Presley movie and in the cuisines of the southeast. In The Palmetto Book, author Jono

Miller explores the history and mythology of the plant, from its unique biology to its ecological importance to the controversy over whether palmettos are actually trees. I asked Miller, former Director of the Environmental Studies Program at New College of Florida in Sarasota, about his fascination with palmettos and his new book. •

Why did you choose to write about the cabbage palm?

What other plant could appear at home in both a Dr. Seuss book and a dinosaur diorama? I mean, they just look and behave differently than just about every other plant we’re exposed to. I imagine everyone who sees one for the first time must be just a smidge curious about them. They are as common as sand in peninsular Florida and have been called the ‘raccoon of the plant world’, but they contain so many paradoxical secrets that it is fun to get to know them.

Is the Sabal palm a tree — and why?

That’s like asking if CERTS was a breath mint or a candy mint. Cabbage palms are simultaneously trees and not trees. The US Forest Service, the states of Florida and South Carolina, field botanists, ecologists, field guides, plant keys, naturalists, and common citizens are all on board with cabbage palms being trees, because, you know, they’re palm trees. Ecologists consider cabbage palms to be trees because of their arborescent (tree-like) form and their roles in the ecosystem. Plant taxonomists and people who like to flaunt their superior knowledge will tell you they are not trees. If someone insists they are not trees, ask if they are plant taxonomists. If not, prepare yourself for being told that, technically speaking, you are wrong about any number of things (like Massachusetts isn’t a state, but rather a commonwealth!).

How did palmettos become the cultural icon they are today?

You’re flattering me to recognize them as a cultural icon, and they certainly are in South Carolina, but the palm icon we are constantly confronted with in Florida is the coconut palm. Well over 99% of the palm images you’ll see on corporate logos, clip art, etc. are coconut palms. In fact, the coconut palm has appeared on Florida’s state seal 72 years longer than the cabbage palm.

by Andrew Elias

Cabbage palms are simultaneously trees and not trees.

Why are palmettos so important to the wildlife and ecology of the swamp?

You can find them on higher elevations in swamps, but they really shine along rivers in floodplain forests called hydric hammocks. Cabbage palms and live oaks are some of the only trees that can thrive in settings that can be underwater for several weeks each year. As I wrote in the book, virtually every terrestrial animal in the range of the cabbage palm has probably interacted with them. That list includes bears, most woodpeckers, turtles, panthers, scrub jays, honey bees, vultures, northern yellow bats, rat snakes, ospreys, and a wide variety of migratory birds.

What are the two most fascinating things you discovered in researching this book?

That nobody knows for sure how long they can live (we’re up somewhere over two centuries), and they appear to have some cells that never die — that bizarre fact is in one of the chapters that didn’t make it into the book.

What is your favorite historical story about palmettos?

Well, it’s hard to beat the story of how the palm log fort on Sullivan’s Island thwarted the British attack on Charleston just a week before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But the story I find most charming is the story of the cabbage palm that was shipped from South Carolina to Gettysburg to mark the location of the South Carolina contingent campground at the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The former northern troops had never seen such a strange plant, and it was ultimately dissected during the event to create souvenirs. The gentleman that had the palm shipped to Pennsylvania decorated five ‘handsome, fine-looking old ladies’ who, as young girls, had served as Union nurses yet had tended to wounded Confederate soldiers after Lee’s surrender. How’s that for a poignant reunion?

What is the myth about palmettos you most want to dispel?

Oh boy, only one? How about if I cheat and say: That they are a big grass and need to be pruned for reasons other than to create clearance from buildings, power lines, sidewalks, driveways, etc. Many of the same people that think cabbage palms are not

The Palmetto Book Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm trees also think they are big grasses. Stand your ground. They are not grasses. Never by Jono Miller will be. Grasses are in a com(University Press of florida) pletely different plant family. And there’s no need to prune them unless they are brushing up against something.

How important were Sabal palms to the Seminole culture and society?

Well, I can’t speak for the Seminoles or Miccosukees. They could easily have dozens of uses, but it is safe to say their traditional vernacular architecture, the chickee, depends on cabbage palm fronds for roof thatching. Ethnobotanists believe the edible heart of the cabbage palm (swamp cabbage) was probably not a measurable part of North American native diets before the arrival of metal axes – it would be a lot of work to harvest swamp cabbage with just a shell or stone tool.

How is climate change affecting cabbage palms and palmetto hammocks in Florida?

Overall, we are probably entering a great period for cabbage palms. As the planet warms, cabbage palms will likely expand their range northward. We keep hearing about climate change and fires, hurricanes and sea level rise. Cabbage palms handle fire better than other native trees. They are pre-adapted to deal with hurricanes since they are the most wind resistant native tree, and they are the last terrestrial (non-mangrove) to die as sea level rises. Sadly, because of rising sea level, thousands of cabbage palms are already dying on Florida’s Big Bend coast. I argue in the book that painter Winslow Homer’s paintings may have inadvertently created the first images of rising sea level.

What can we learn from the palmetto?

Things that may appear commonplace and ordinary can turn out to be Winslow Homer’s ‘The White Rowboat, St. Johns River’ extraordinary. •