Plant Guide > Trees > Palms and Palmettos > Thatch or Silk Top Palmetto Tree

Thatch or Silk Top Palmetto Tree

Thatch or Silk Top Palmetto TreeThe Thatch, or Silk-top Palmetto (Thrinax Floridana, Sarg.) has a silver lining in its glossy green fan leaves, making it a beautiful and showy tree. It mounts its leaf crown 20 or 30 feet high on a slender white stem which is clothed half way down in the sheaths of dead leaf stalks. The branched flower stems are pendant from among the leaves; the fruit is a white berry with bitter juice. The tree inhabits coral reefs and the mainland coast between Cape Romano and Cape Sable.

Another silver-leaved Thatch (T. Keyensis, Sarg.) rises on a supporting framework of its own roots 2 or 3 feet above the beach sand of the Marquesas Keys, Crab Key and the Bahamas.