Dwarf Palmetto

This species may occur farther west than indicated here, even as far as has recently been found in Tamaulipas, Mexico (D. H. Goldman 1999)., but reports have not been confirmed.

Sabal minor is usually a small palm with a subterranean trunk; however, one can find individuals with larger features and well-developed aerial stems. In Louisiana, these individuals were recognized as separate species (J. K. Small 1929; M. L. Bomhard 1935), but more recently they have been treated as merely ecological variants of a single widespread species (A. Henderson et al. 1995; P. F. Ramp and L. B. Thien 1995; S. Zona 1990). Large emergent forms of S. minor were even thought by B. J. Simpson (1988) to be hybrids of that species with S. palmetto, but his claim is undocumented and unsubstantiated.

An unusual habitat for this species, a dry hillside in central Texas, was illustrated by L. Lockett (1991).

A dwarf, unarmed “stemless” subterranean palm with rhizome. Leaves green or bluish, stiff or nearly flat, 45-105 cm long, divided 2/3 or more to the base into 20-35 (-40) entire or shortly 2-cleft, 1-ribbed segments; petiole green, as long as the blade, unarmed, smooth. Inflorescence usually exceeding leaves, erect, 60-150 cm long, primary branches usually once branched into rachillae. Flowers whitish, small, c. 3 mm long; sepals united in a 3-lobed calyx; corolla lobes imbricate in bud. Carpels united. Fruit black, glossy, globular, c. 1 cm in diameter.

Stems usually subterranean. Leaves 4--10, dark green, weakly costapalmate, little if at all curved, not bearing fibers between segments; hastula obtuse, 0.8--4.7 cm; segments not filiferous, 34--—84 ´ 1.4--3.7 cm; apices weakly if at all bifid2-cleft. Inflorescences sparsely branched with 2 orders of branching (not counting main inflorescence axis), erect, much longer than leaves. Flowers 3.5--5.2 mm. Fruits brownish black, spheroid, length 6.2--8.5 mm, diam. 6.4--9.7 mm; pericarp thin. Seeds 3.5--5.1 mm, diam. 4.4--6.9 mm diam. 2n = 36.

Distribution: Indigenous to S.E. United States of America; rarely cultivated in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tex.; Mexico.

Flowering spring--summer.

Mesic hammocks, floodplains, levees, river banks, swamps, but occurring on much drier sites in west-central Tex.; ca. 10--600m.

Corypha minor Jacquin, Hort. Bot. Vindob. 3: 8, plate 8. 1776; Chamaerops acaulis Michaux; C. louisiana W. Darby; Corypha pumila Walter; Sabal adansonii Guersent; S.abal adiantinum Rafinesque; S. deeringiana Small; S. louisiana (W. Darby) Bomhard; S. pumila (Walter) Elliott