Palms

Colin White, our guest speaker has had a love of palms since an early age and a father who planted palms on the Gold Coast in the 1960s.

His garden is packed full of a great variety of palms which can be viewed on our Oct 2014 “Saturday Visits” … his own garden. The term palm is given to plants that carry a large cluster of leaves at the top of a stem or trunk.
They are different to trees.
The palm family has about 2800 species in over 200 genera. The majority of palms are found in the wetter equatorial regions with the richest of these in the Malay Peninsular, Borneo and Sumatra.
The islands of Madagascar, Mascarene and the Seychelles also have very rich palm flora.
Australia has about 50 with 40 of them north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Palm uses include food, shelter and basket making.
Colin displayed a variety of palm fruiting bodies and leaves.