Native Plants

Fan palm has a trunk that almost always grows underground. Thin stems grow from the underground trunk and have a wide, singular frond on top. It grows to be 5-10 feet tall and puts out showy white flowers during spring and early summer. It produces 2 clusters of flowers at a time.

Found only in North Florida west of the Suwannee River, shortleaf pine grows naturally in only a very small area of Florida. They occupy the same range and habitat as spruce pine. Spruce pines have silvery gray bark but shortleaf pines remain reddish brown. The clustered cones of shortleaf are also short, only 1.5 to 2.5 inches long, the smallest of any Florida pine.

Spruce pines are one of Florida’s least common pines. They are found generally among loblollies and hardwood trees. They are the most shade-tolerant of Florida’s pines, though they can reach an impressive 115 feet high at maturity. To distinguish spruce pine from similar species, look for open cones that persist in the canopy. Twisted needles grow in bundles of two, and are four inches long or shorter.

Found in North and Central Florida, the pond pine prefers poorly drained flatwoods and pond edges. Pond pines are sometimes mistaken for loblolly pines because of the similarities in their needles. Both species produce needles about 5-6 inches long and in bundles of three, or occasionally two or four. But pond pine cones are smaller, only 2-3 inches, and more egg-shaped.

The cones of pond pines are well worth some extra attention. They are called “serotinous,” meaning they open in response to fire. The cones may remain closed on the tree for years, suddenly opening when fires clear the brush beneath them.

Loblolly pine often reaches between 50 and 80 feet tall but can grow up to 100 feet, with a graceful, spreading crown. It prefers loamy soil and is seldom found in wet ground or sand pine scrub areas.

Longleaf pines have the longest needles of the Florida pine species — up to 14 inches long. These trees can reach 125 feet high, though there are more often seen around 60. They are also appreciated for their large pine comes and pine nuts.

At one point, forests of longleaf pine covered upwards of 60 million acres in the Southeast. Today, urban development and fire suppression limit these forests considerably.

The sand pine is found in sandy areas throughout Florida. Sand pines are small to medium-sized trees. They can reach heights of 100 feet they are more often seen in the range of 15-40 feet. They do not self-prune their lower branches, keeping a conical form. Sand pine needles are only 2-3 inches long, short for a Florida pine. Many specimens have twisted trunks and branches.

The Choctawhatchee variety of sand pine is considered the best native pine Christmas tree. When they are grown for this purpose the trees are sheared and pruned into a conical shape. Choctawhatchee sand pines are also the pine of choice for restoration projects because they survive transplanting so well.

The slash pine is a staple of Southern landscapes. Pinus elliottii var. densa, also called “Dade County pine,” dominate South Florida and the Keys. The “typical” slash pine is common in the cooler half of Florida and up to the Smokey Mountains.

Fast-growing, self-pruning, and regularly reaching 75 – 100 feet tall. They were prized by shipbuilders, and the name “slash” pine comes to us from the resin and turpentine industry. Harvesters would cut an angled “slash” in the wood and collect the resin that oozed out. Resin is no longer a major industry in Florida, but scarred slash pines survive in old pine stands.

As its name suggests, the key thatch palm is native to the Florida Keys, along with the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. It grows to 20 to 35 feet tall and produces silvery-green fronds. Key Thatch Palms grow very slowly.

This fan palm is common in swampy, shady places and grows wild in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mexico. Like the needle palm, dwarf palmetto is tolerant to very cold weather and can withstand temperatures as low as 0F. The dwarf palmetto is a lot like the saw palmetto only smaller. It also lacks the saw-like texture on the edges of its fronds. The dwarf palmetto grows on an underground trunk and gets to be about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

The buccaneer palm was common in the Florida Keys and on the Southern Atlantic coast until the early 1900s. Most specimens were gutted from their natural habitat by illegal harvesters, so this tree is now endangered. Buccaneer palms are cold-sensitive and only hardy to USDA zones 10B and below. They’re one of the slowest-growing palm trees on earth and usually reach a height of up to 15 feet.

The saw palmetto is a low-lying palm that grows to be 5-10 feet tall and up to 10 feet wide. It’s more shrub-like than a tree and has spiny fronds.

Royal Palm (Roystonea regia)

Royal palms are massive and average between 70 and 100 feet tall. The royal palm is perhaps the most ornamental of Florida’s native palm trees. It has a smooth trunk and beautiful, flowing fronds cascading from the top. In between the trunk and the fronds is a green column of densely packed frond bases called the crownshaft.

The silver palm is a medium, shrubby tree that usually tops out at 8 feet. Under perfect growing conditions, it can get to 30 feet tall but this is rare. A young silver palm looks like a fountain of fronds sprouting from a small, low-lying trunk. As the palm ages, the trunk gets longer, wider, and more prominent. The silver palm gets its name from the silver shiny hue on the underside of its fronds. Their natural Florida habitat ranges from the Lower Keys to Palm Beach.

The Florida thatch palm is a slow-growing palm tree, considered a medium-sized palm that grows to about 20 feet tall, with an exceptionally long lifespan of up to 150 years. The average palm tree lifespan is usually between 70 and 80 years. It’s rare to find this tree wild in Florida, mostly found in its natural habitat in the southernmost part of the state. It’s more common in less developed areas of the Caribbean and Central America.

The needle palm grows wild in the Southeastern U.S. (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida). Instead of having a trunk, it grows slender stems from a central base. It’s a shrubby, clumping palm that grows up to 8 feet tall and 8 feet wide. The needle palm can withstand temperatures below 0F and even snow. This makes Rhapidophyllum hystrix one of a handful of palm trees that can survive winter. Like the paurotis palm, the needle palm is endangered in the wild.

This is another fan palm and it likes to grow in clusters. Although the paurotis palm can reach 30 feet tall, it usually stops between 16 and 23 feet. The paurotis palm is also known as the Everglades palm because it grows in swampy areas and even in standing water. This Florida native palm tree is a protected species, it used to be plentiful in the Everglades but is now hard to find due to illegal harvesting.

The cabbage palm it’s Florida’s state tree, and one of its most iconic native palm trees. Unlike the fan palms on this list, the cabbage palm grows up to 65 feet tall and has a woody trunk with a canopy of fronds on top.

The cabbage palm got its name because its inner core, called the heart of the palm, is edible and tastes like cabbage. Cabbage palms are mostly found growing in coastal areas and need hot and humid summers to thrive.

Rarer than the scrub palmetto is the Miami palmetto. Some scientists think the Miami palmetto may be extinct in the wild (although you can find it cultivated in gardens). Before its practical extinction, the Miami palmetto grew in the rocky pinelands of Dade county.

The Miami palmetto is a lot like the scrub palmetto but with bigger fruit. It also produces 3 clusters of flowers at a time instead of the scrub palmetto’s 2.