"I'd walk a mile for..."

[robyn]

In my experience, hearts of palm are from the center of the trunks of coconut palms, and you have to kill the palm tree to get at those hearts. I've never before heard of any other palm tree being used, but the canned hearts of palm I've eaten taste exactly like hearts of coconut palm I've eaten fresh in Malaysia when palm trees had to be chopped down or had snapped in a rainstorm. Do the sabal trees produce any edible fruit or nut and do they grow quickly enough for it to be cost-effective to kill lots of them yearly in palm-heart production?

When it comes to Florida festivals - and Florida swamp cabbage - you're talking about the sabal palm (although I suspect other people in other countries have used similar techniques on other types of palms). And you do have to kill the trees to get to the hearts of palm.

I could be wrong - but I don't think there's any commercial hearts of palm production in Florida. The stuff for the festivals - which isn't a huge amount - according to what little I've read - generally comes from the "harvest" of someone who needs some land to be cleared. These are small town festivals designed to recreate how various peoples in Florida used to live - they're not meant to celebrate a commercial crop.

I really don't know a lot about lots of palms. But best I can tell from the sabal palms on my land - they grow wild here - they don't produce anything else that's edible for people (although a lot of bugs seem to enjoy them during the year). And they don't grow very quickly. I have only been here about 8 years - but a palm that was maybe 5 feet high when I moved here is maybe 10 feet high now - not anywhere near full height. Perhaps that's why there's no commercial crop grown in Florida. They just grow too slowly - and you don't get enough "bang from the buck" out of a tree. On the other hand - pine trees are a big commercial crop in my area (faster growing and more commercial "yield"). Robyn

[Mabelline]

Robyn, we're calling the same plant two different names. Sorry, I'm an ag. science nerd, and I had to think about it. But after a Google I got the taxonomy,& so:Saw Palmetto-Sabal Serrulatum,also sabal serenoa. And boy am I glad. I was fixing to whup someone down in Ga. next time I saw him. So, we are both right( I think that's in the women's code book).

[robyn]

Robyn, we're calling the same plant two different names. Sorry, I'm an ag. science nerd, and I had to think about it. But after a Google I got the taxonomy,& so:Saw Palmetto-Sabal Serrulatum,also sabal serenoa. And boy am I glad. I was fixing to whup someone down in Ga. next time I saw him. So, we are both right( I think that's in the women's code book).

The saw palmetto and the sabal palm are two different things. Although the saw palmetto is from the palm family - it's a low growing plant. The "trunk" basically grows horizontal to the ground. Kind of looks like a tree growing on its side. The sabal palm is an upright palm with a vertical trunk. I have both growing in my yard (they are both natives and grow just about everywhere). It is sometimes hard to distinguish between a young sabal palm and a saw palmetto if you're not familiar with the plants. But the fronds on the sabal palm are larger - and - after a year or two - the sabal palm will be growing in an obvious vertical way - whereas the saw palmetto will always hug the ground.

I realize it's hard to get things straight when people are looking at common - not Latin - names. Best and easiest way to tell the difference between the two is look at the state tree of Florida (the sabal palm) and the state plant of South Carolina (saw palmetto - South Carolina is the palmetto state). The fronds look the same - but they're obviously different (basically one is a shrub - the other is a tree). By the way - the Latin for the saw palmetto is serenoa repens. For the sabal palm - it's sabal palmetto. Guess that's why it gets a bit confusing. Robyn

[Mabelline]

Thank you! I got out a horticulture book and hell that was like calling a horse a mule. Can you eat the upright one too? Hey, doesn't ANYBODY else want to go to the big tomato fight ? And as far as Pamplona goes, there's testosterone just dripping at that. I am now at the age where even watching young men imitating crash test dummies makes me jittery.

[robyn]

Thank you! I got out a horticulture book and hell that was like calling a horse a mule. Can you eat the upright one too? Hey, doesn't ANYBODY else want to go to the big tomato fight ? And as far as Pamplona goes, there's testosterone just dripping at that. I am now at the age where even watching young men imitating crash test dummies makes me jittery.

The upright one (the sabal palm) is the one we eat here at Florida festivals.

I am at an age where watching young men running around half naked makes me . Robyn