Most of us probably think of the palm tree as purely decorative. We have seen pictures of these stately trees lining the streets in certain cities, or growing near tropical beaches.

Actually, there are about four thousand different species of palm trees and they are among the most useful trees known to man. Their fruit, their stems, and their tender leaves provide food. Their leaves, branches, and trunks furnish strong wood, cane, thatch, and twine. Their bark and leaves are used in making rugs, paper, cloth, baskets, hats, and brushes. The nuts of the ivory palm are carved into buttons. The sap of some palms is made into sugar, or wine, or honey.

Most palms have the same general shape. The majority of them have straight, slender, unbranching trunks with a cluster of leaves at the top. Others have branching stems and at least one is a trailing vine. They vary from a few centimeters to 23 meters tall. They are called palm trees because their leaves resemble a hand.

The shiny, leathery leaves are either fan-shape or feather-shaped. Their measurements range from a few centimeters to 3 meters wide and 9 meters long. The fruit of a palm tree may be the size of a bean or as large as a football, as in the case of a coconut. It may be soft like a date, or have a woody covering.

There are palms in the southern United States, Mexico, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. In the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean, there are great quantities of palms. Some grow in dry desert sand and some grow in rich damp earth.

While Palms are mainly tropical, there is one species that grows at 3.960 meters in the northern Andes! The many varieties include: oil palm, saga palm, palmyra palm, cabbage palm Native to Australia), button-nut palm, petal-nut palm and coconut palm. Raffia for basket making is made from the leaves of a malagasy pawn.