Palmetto

palm trees, chiefly of the West Indies, Florida, and the Carolinas. There are several species, but the name is restricted usually to the palmetto tree, twenty to eighty feet in height. Instead of a clean palm trunk, the first leaves break off a foot or two from the stem. Their adhering bases give the lower ten to twenty feet of the trunk a peculiar bristly, ragged appearance. The crown terminal bud of the palmetto is a substitute for cabbage. The leaves are cut for palm-leaf fans. The trunk is used for wharf piling on account of its ability to withstand the attacks of the dreaded teredo or borer. The trunks are used also in constructing temporary fortifications. A cannon ball buries itself harmlessly in the pithy, cork-like wood of the logs, without throwing splinters or dislodging them. Palmetto hats are made from the stripped leaves of another, the palmyra palm. South Carolina is called the Palmetto State.