Palm tree pictures and detailed
information on Palm trees
Each tree picture category on the left gives you
information about the specific tree types and lots of great pictures of that tree.
For each palm tree picture
just click on the picture to make the tree picture enlarge.
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Detailed Information
on Palm trees
Palms
are evergreen, mostly tropical plants in the family Palmae (also known as Arecaceae).
There are over 2500 species of palms. Most are tree-like, with single trunks and either
fan shaped (palmate) or feather shaped (pinnate) compound leaves. The larger palms make
dramatic statements in USDA Zone 8-10 landscapes, and smaller palms are grown in
containers everywhere.
Further Information on Palm Trees
Worldwide, the family Palmae is composed of over 230 genera and about 3000 species. Only a
few of these are indigenous to the continental United States, and most of these are
restricted to the warmer regions of southern United States, southern Florida and southern
California. However, a large number of exotic species have been imported for ornamental
purposes and a few of these have become widely naturalized.
For identification purposes, palm trees can be divided into two major
groups: those that have palmate or fan-shaped leaves; and those that have pinnate, or
feather-shaped leaves. The palmate-leaved species are characterized by a leaf structure in
which all leaf segments arise from a single point, similar to the structure of a human
hand. Pinnate leaves are characterized by leaves along each side of a central axis,
similar in design to that of a feather.
Palm trees (Palmaceae) have been termed the princes of the vegetable kingdom. Neither the
anatomy of the Palm tree stems nor the conformation of their flowers, however, entitles
them to any such high position in the vegetable hierarchy. Palm tree stems are not more
complicated in structure than those of the common butcher’s broom (Ruscus); their
flowers are for the most part as simple as those of a rush (Juncus). The order Palmaceae
is characterized among monocotyledonous plants by the presence of an unbranched stem
bearing a tuft of leaves at the extremity only, or with the leaves scattered; these
leaves, often gigantic in size, being usually firm in texture and branching in a pinnate
or palmate fashion. The flowers are borne on simple or branching spikes, very generally
protected by a spathe or spathes, and each consists typically of a perianth of six
greenish, somewhat inconspicuous segments in two rows, with six stamens, or pistil of 1-3
carpel's, each with a single ovule and a succulent or dry fruit.
The seed consists almost exclusively of endosperm,
Upper portion of Coconut seed, albumen in a cavity in showing the embryo, embedded in
endosperm, which is lodged the relatively very minute embryo. These are the general
characteristics by which this very well-defined order may be discriminated, but, in a
group containing considerably more than a thousand species, deviations from the general
plan of structure occur with some frequency. As the characteristic appearances of palms
depend to a large extent upon these modifications, some of the more important among them
may briefly be noticed.
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Arborvitae Tree Pictures
