The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts.
Cycads are seed plants with a very long fossil history that were formerly more abundant and more diverse than they are today. They typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, therefore the individual plants of a species are either male or female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow very slowly and live very long, with some specimens known to be as much as 1,000 years old. Because of their superficial resemblance, they are sometimes mistaken for palms or ferns, but they are not closely related to either group.
David Grandison Fairchild was an American botanist and plant explorer. Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United States, including soybeans, pistachios, mangos, nectarines, dates, bamboos, and flowering cherries. Certain varieties of wheat, cotton, and rice became especially economically important.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is an 83-acre (34 ha) botanic garden with extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees, and vines. It is located in the city of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, just south of Miami, surrounded at the north and west by Matheson Hammock Park.
The Kampong is a 9-acre botanical garden in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. It is one of the five gardens of the non-profit National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), and is open to visitors Wednesday through Friday by advance reservation. An admission fee is charged.
The University of California Botanical Garden is a 34-acre botanical garden located on the University of California, Berkeley campus, in Strawberry Canyon. The Garden is in the Berkeley Hills, inside the city boundary of Oakland, with views overlooking the San Francisco Bay. It is one of the most diverse plant collections in the United States, and famous for its large number of rare and endangered species.
The 'Kent' mango is a named mango cultivar that originated in south Florida.
The 'Haden' mango is a named mango cultivar that became one of the most widely cultivated in the world after it was introduced in the early 20th century through south Florida. It would ultimately become the parent of many other mango cultivars later developed in Florida.
The Plant Collections Network (PCN) is a group of North American botanical gardens and arboreta that coordinates a continent-wide approach to plant germplasm preservation, and promotes excellence in plant collections management. The program is administered by the American Public Gardens Association from its headquarters in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in collaboration with the USDA- Agricultural Research Service.
Coccothrinax is a genus of palms in the family Arecaceae. There are more than 50 species described in the genus, plus many synonyms and subspecies. A new species was described as recently as 2017. Many Coccothrinax produce thatch. In Spanish-speaking countries, guano is a common name applied to Coccothrinax palms. The species are native throughout the Caribbean, the Bahamas, extreme southern Florida and southeastern Mexico, but most of the species are known only from Cuba.
Encephalartos woodii, Wood's cycad, is a rare cycad in the genus Encephalartos, and is endemic to the oNgoye Forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is one of the rarest plants in the world, being extinct in the wild with all specimens being clones of the type. The specific and common name both honour John Medley Wood, curator of the Durban Botanic Garden and director of the Natal Government Herbarium of South Africa, who discovered the plant in 1895.
The Palmetum of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a botanical garden of 120.000 m² specialized in palms (Arecaceae). It is an artificial hill, with views of the ocean, located in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. The gardens include a large system of waterfalls, streams and ponds, a museum dedicated to palms, and a display shade house. The project was started in 1995 on a former landfill and only opened to the public in 2014. The valuable palm collection gathers about 600 species of palms and it is focused on the ones native to world islands. Trees and shrubs of other plant families are also displayed, organised in "biogeographical sections". All gardens are maintained with no pesticides and no fertilizers, different species of wild birds are easily seen in the palmetum.
Hemithrinax ekmaniana is a palm which is endemic to Cuba. Only a single population of less than 100 mature individuals remains in the wild.
Robert Hiester Montgomery was an American accountant and educator. He also co-founded what is today the world's largest accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
A palmetum is a collection of palms (Arecaceae) and not a natural population of palms. Most palmeta are botanical gardens specialized in growing, research, conserve and display species of the family Arecaceae.
The 'Cogshall' mango is a named mango cultivar that originated in southwest Florida.
The 'Graham' mango is a named mango cultivar which originated in Trinidad.
The 'Valencia Pride' mango is a named late-season mango cultivar that originated in south Florida.
Chapman Field is a horticulture and agronomy research facility of the Agricultural Research Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), located in Miami, Florida. Dating from 1898, it is one of the oldest entities in South Florida. The USDA also refers to it as the Miami Station.
Alex Drum Hawkes (1927–1977) was an American botanist and cookbook author that lived in Coconut Grove, Florida & Kingston, Jamaica. Alex specialized in orchids, bromeliads, palm trees, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Named the orchid genera Flickingeria, and Paraphalaenopsis and travelled the world extensively, particularly the Caribbean & Latin America during the 1940s - 1970s collecting plants and authentic regional recipes.
