Sabal bermudana
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| Bermuda Palmetto | ||||||||||||||
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 A Bermuda Palmetto in a Spanish botanical garden.
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| Sabal bermudana L. H. Bailey |
Sabal bermudana, also known as Bermuda Palmetto, Palmetto, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm (Arecaceae, genus Sabal). It is endemic to Bermuda. It was greatly effected by the introduction of non-native plants such as the Chinese Fan-Palm, which created competition for space which it usually lost.
Sabal bermudana grows up to 25m in height, with the occasional old tree growing up to 30m in height, with a trunk up to 55cm in diameter. It is a fan palm (Arecaceae tribe Corypheae), with the leaves with a bare petiole terminating in a rounded fan of numerous leaflets. Each leaf is 1.5-2 m long, with 45-60 leaflets up to 75 cm long. The flowers are yellowish-white, 5 mm across, produced in large panicles up to 2.5 m long, extending out beyond the leaves. The fruit is a deep brown to black drupe about 1 cm long containing a single seed. It is extremely salt-tolerant and is often seen growing near the Atlantic Ocean coast in Bermuda, and also frost-tolerant, surviving short periods of temperatures as low as -14 °C, although it will never get that cold in Bermuda.
Bermudians used to use, for a short period, the leaflets of the palm to weave into hats and export them to the U.K. and other countries. Sabal bermudana also had hole drilled into its trunk and sap extracted to make "bibby", a strong alcoholic beverage.
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