palm or cycad

Tall and densely leafy, the paurotis palm has leaves with hooked petioles (leaf stems) and flowers that produce orange or black berries. A terrific clumping palm with large, fan-like leaves and many fibery, brown trunks, it is native to the western Caribbean Basin, from the Bahamas westward to the Yucatan of Mexico and Costa Rica.

Each frond is like a wide, multi-fingered hand, with many leaflets that are untouching until the middle of their length. The leaf stem petioles have many sharp, hooked...

Christmas palm is a tall, graceful, evergreen with an arching, feathery crown of fronds. Strap-like leaflets of this native of the Philippines are green to dark green above and light green and scaly below. Flowers generally occur in summer and are yellow to yellow-green and held in pendent, brached clusters at the base of the crownshaft. The fruits become bright red or orange-red by late autumn, lingering into the winter. This coincided with Christmas in its native land.

Christmas palm prefers...

With a lush crown of green feathery fronds that can be pendulous, macaw palm is well-known for its tan trunk that is protected by thousands of thin black spines. A solitary-trunked palm from the Greater Antilles (except Cuba), it is truly a graceful palm with a lovely rounded canopy native to the rainforest understory.

The young leaves are dark green with lighter green undersides; these juveniles leaves are also covered in thin black spines. Once mature and much larger, most of the spine of the...

One of the most salt and drought tolerant palms, Allagoptera arenaria or seashore palm from the coastal regions of Brazil is also one of the most beautiful. Based on fossil records, it is regarded as the most ancient of palms, the predecessor of all others. This small palm is suitable for dune stabilization, landscapes and containers.

Long pinnate (feather-like) leaves emerge directly from an underground stem at many angles giving this palm a fluffy mounded look. Occasionally, the...

Stately, tall, beautiful and fast growing, Alexandra palm, named in honor of Princess Alexandra of Denmark, lends a tropical look to the landscape. It is native to the coastal rainforest of northeastern Australia and is much planted in tropical regions around the world. The solitary palm has a slender, gray trunk, swollen base and ringed with leaf scars. The large, feather-like leaves are light green above, distinctively silver-white below with many, pointed leaflets which clasp together to form...

King palm is a tall evergreen with bright green leaves, sometimes having brown scales on the paler green undersides. The trunk is straight and slender with interesting rings. Lavender-purple flowers occur on cream-colored stalks; fruits are round and bright red when mature.

The graceful king palm thrives in full sun with ample water or in partial shade. It is fast growing, but tender to prolonged modestly sub-freezing temperatures. It is best sheltered from strong winds and is most attractive...

Fast growing and towering high above the tropical landscape, betel palm has a beautiful arching head of fronds, fragrant flowers and colorful gold to red fruits. This tender palm is believed to be native to the wet soils of Malaysia, although today it's found all across Southeast Asia and into the Pacific Islands.

The tall trunk of the palm is gray and smooth, with notable white bands. The medium green fronds emerge from a long green crownshaft, each frond being stiff but pleasantly arching with...

Elegant in form with graceful, feathery fronds, the orange crownshaft palm is one of the world's most colorful palms, featuring a crownshaft of cheerful orange, gold and red tones. A palm that is known as a singular trunked or multi-trunked, clustering species, it is native to the lower elevations of eastern Indonesia's mountain rainforests.

The fronds are pinnate (feather-like) in form and are held upright from the orange crownshaft and then gracefully arch. The crownshaft is the smooth area...

With dense fronds of green with silvery undersides, Formosa palm has fragrant yellow-orange flowers followed by purplish fruits. An evergreen clustering palm from the southern islands of Japan and the island of Taiwan, each trunk of the palm flowers once before degrading and dying, soon to be replaced by new trunks.

The palm trunks are covered in black fibers, eventually shedding and becoming grayish tan with age. The fronds are feather-like and can become quite large. The leaflets themselves...