Bentham's Fan Palm

The Essence

"Livistona benthamii is a solitary fan palm of the seasonally flooded lowlands of northern Australia and southern New Guinea, and one of the few Livistona species adapted to genuinely swampy ground: it grows in swamp forest, on alluvial flats, in gallery forest, and even on the leeward side of mangroves. Frederick Manson Bailey described it in 1902 from a collection made at Somerset on Cape York Peninsula by Frank L. Jardine; Livistona holtzei and Livistona melanocarpa are treated as synonyms. Its most useful field character is the trunk, which stays clothed in persistent petiole stubs because the leaves break off at about the middle of the petiole instead of shedding cleanly. Published measurements differ - Palmweb gives a stem to 18 m tall and 13-20 cm dbh, while Monaco Nature Encyclopedia reports 16-20 m with a base of 30-40 cm narrowing to 14-18 cm higher up - so the figures below are given with their sources. Plants are functionally male or female. The apical bud is edible, though taking it kills the palm. In cultivation it is grown for its ornamental form, including roadside planting, and is described as cyclone resistant and attractive to birds and butterflies; a cultivated specimen can be seen on the Freshwater Lake Walk at the Flecker Botanic Gardens in Cairns."

The apical bud, the "cabbage", is edible. The CSIRO Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants key records that the central growing tip is eaten raw or lightly roasted, and Territory Native Plants notes that the cabbage is still occasionally eaten. Harvesting it kills the plant.