California Fan Palm

The Essence

"The California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera), also called the desert fan palm or cotton palm, is the only palm species native to the southwestern United States and one of the hardiest of the coryphoid palms. It typically grows 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 m) tall on a sturdy columnar trunk, crowned with waxy, fan-shaped, gray-blue-green leaves. Its most distinctive feature is a dense skirt, or 'petticoat', of persistent dead fronds that often conceals the trunk, along with the long white thread-like fibers between leaf segments that give the species its name. In late summer it sends out long branched inflorescences of small cream-colored flowers, followed by small black fruit in autumn. Native to southern California, Arizona, and Baja California and Sonora in Mexico, it grows around desert oases and other perennial water sources; scattered groves in Clark County, Nevada, are of debated origin and may be planted or naturalized rather than truly native. Long-lived and tied to the desert, it has become a popular ornamental street and landscape palm in arid and subtropical climates, rated hardy to roughly USDA zone 8."

Indigenous and economic uses of the palm include edible fruit pulp eaten raw, cooked, or ground to flour, leaves used for thatch, baskets and sandals, and the palm heart. It is also widely cultivated as an ornamental street and landscape palm in arid and subtropical climates.