The ubiquitous sabal or cabbage palmetto is a native tree that we all know and see every day. This island was renamed the Isle of Palms after being called Long Island because it was thought that name would attract more visitors to the amusement park and hotel resort in the early 1900s, when the ferry and trolley cars brought beach-goers here. Think how many palmettos we see every day in every block of Palm Boulevard and everywhere else on the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island.
It is our official state tree, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm and thrives within 75 miles of the coast, from North Carolina all the way to South Florida. With fanlike green leaves and a thick stem, its half-inch berries turn black when ripe and are food for many kinds of wildlife, including robins, woodpeckers, crows, cedar waxwings, mockingbirds, raccoons, squirrels and deer.
The terminal bud or growing point called the “heart” is sometimes eaten by people, but removing it will kill the tree since that is where it grows. On the North Carolina coast, they are no longer plentiful, partly because people harvested so many for heart of palm salads. It tastes similar to cabbage, which is where its common name originated.
Palmettos are in the Arecaceae family, they can survive saltwater inundation and are heat, drought and even fire resistant. They are cold hardy down to 15 degrees F. Some landscapers have used a similar looking palm on our islands that was developed in Florida as a cultivar. But this one is not as resistant to hard freezes and grows much taller. After severe cold spells, you can see many of them with severe damage. If you are hiring someone to plant palmettos, always make sure they are using the native cabbage or sabal palmetto, our true state tree, and not a substitute from Florida.
The Palmetto tree earned its place in the hearts of South Carolinians during the Revolutionary War when its spongy, flexible trunk was used to build Fort Moultrie – then called Fort Sullivan. Because the logs absorbed the British cannonballs, which did not shatter on explosion, the patriots were victorious. The flag created by Col. William Moultrie and held up by Sgt. William Jasper to rally the troops showed a palmetto on a dark blue field, the color of his troops’ uniforms.
Many people think the other symbol on our state flag is a crescent moon, but that’s not the case. Some say that the crescent represents a gorget, which was a crescent-shaped piece of armor worn around a soldier’s neck for protection in battle. But by the mid to late 1700s, warfare had changed and this armor was no longer used. However, it was still considered a sign of rank and was used in a smaller, more symbolic or ornamental form. The patriots at Fort Sullivan had this silver crescent on their caps, so it probably represented a gorget but not a crescent moon.
If you have lived here any length of time, you probably know that this first decisive patriot victory on June 28, 1776, at Fort Sullivan encouraged the American Colonies to go ahead and sign the Declaration of Independence six days later.
