Normal trees, like pines and oaks, grow their girth throughout their lives but, because a Sabal Palm only grows at the tip, it takes ten to thirty years to grow a trunk large enough to begin to emerge from the ground. After that, a Sabal Palm grows up about 6 inches per year. This means that a 10 foot palm, like the one in the background, could be thirty to fifty years old. They cannot be grown in a nursery so tall trees must be taken from the wild for landscaping. Sabal Palms are abundant but considering that a tall tree could be over 200 years old, some people are questioning the sustainability of using them as ornamentals.
When they are small, Sabal Palms and Saw Palmettos look very similar. There is a young Sable Palm among the Saw Palmetto here. Take a look at the second picture and note the difference in the leaves where the leaf stem meets the leaf. It is a triangle in the Sable Palm and a straight line in the Saw Palmetto. Also the Saw Palmetto has "saw teeth" along some of its leaf stems. Can you tell the difference between the two here?
The taller Sabal Palm has what are called "boots". The boot is what remains of the leaf stem after the leaf has died off. Note that the stems on this tree have been cut off but the leaves do break off by themselves. The Spanish cowboys, who brought the first cattle into Florida, found these useful in cleaning up their boots and hanging them to dry. Boots may be present or absent on the Sabal Palm and it is not known why some trees retain stems and some do not. The boots provide a place for spores and seeds that need little or no soil to germinate and grow.
