In the whole vegetable kingdom it is so eminently suitable for decoration and is also useful to man as palms.
The leaves of palms present a wonderful variety in form and structure.
They show off their extreme gracefulness and remarkable beauty in the most pleasing manner if used as pot plants in reception rooms or verandas or conservatories, or if planted in the ground outdoor for establishment of the landscape.
The palm may be divided into two groups. Palm in pots: (i). One with pinnate or feather –like leaves and (ii) the other with palmate or fan like leaves.
Palms in Bushes
In the palms the leaf is usually very large and, at the base of the petiole, is the sheath which is attached firmly to the stem.
Usually they bear a crown or leaves at the end of an unbranched stem, but only one genus Hyphaena has a branched or forked trunk
Palm trunks are quite unlike common trees which lack a growing layer in the stem and therefore, they rarely increase in girth.
The soft spongy inner tissues of the plants are surrounded by a hard ring of strong fibers.
Some plants have a glossy green pillar at the top of the woody trunk, known as the crown shaft.
Trunks of some species are sometimes covered with hairy and woolly growth, or a thick mass of long black fibers, or lower part of the trunk is covered by spine-like aerial roots.
Some species possess bottle-shaped trunks and some have tumour like bulges.
A few trunks less species are also found in palms.
Palms are noble plants and serve several useful and economic purposes.
Apart from the ornamental uses of palms in gardens, indoor decoration and landscaping, they furnish food, fiber, shelter, clothing, timber, building material, thatch, paper, oil, wine, dyes, wax etc.
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