J.K.Small 2nd Nov 1901

Species

Sabal miamiensis Zona

Original Distribution

US, Florida, Miami pinelands

Habitat

Small and others collected specimens of this palm from the rocky ridges known as Miami rocklands or Miami pine rocklands in Dade and Broward counties

Description

Sabal miamiensis is a dwarf fan-leaf palm with an underground stem and large (19 mm in diam.), black fruits with large (11.0 mm diam) seeds

Number of Specimens at Kew

1

Seed Data

Black fruits with large (11.0 mm diam) seeds

Specimen Type (Y/N)

Y

Kew Herbcat Barcode Number

K000518095

Collector

J.K.Small

Date Collected

2nd Nov 1901

Other Information

Sabal miamiensis is a dwarf fan-leaf palm with an underground stem and large (19 mm in diam.), black fruits with large (11.0 mm diam) seeds. It was first collected by J. K. Small in 1901 in the vicinity of what is now Miami, Florida (Small 1903). During the first decade of the 1900s, Small and others collected specimens of this palm from the rocky ridges known as Miami rocklands or Miami pine rocklands in Dade and Broward counties. Small misapplied the name Sabal megacarpa (Chapm.) Small, but this name is properly a synonym of Sabal etonia Swingle ex Nash. The taxon was formally named by Zona in 1985.Sabal miamiensis is similar to Sabal etonia Swingle ex Nash, but S. etonia is native to the sand pine scrub of Central Florida's Lake Wales Ridge and the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, were it grows in association with Pinus clausa. Sabal etonia has fruits 9.0 - 15.4 mm in diameter and seeds 6.4 - 9.9 mm in diameter; it also has inflorescences with two orders of branching (Zona 1985).In the Miami pine rocklands, another palm is often present, dwarf forms of Sabal palmetto (Walt.) Lodd. ex J.A. & J.H. Schultes. This species is usually a large palm with a trunk over 5 m tall, but in the poor, rocky soil of the rocklands, S. palmetto is dwarfed and hence, superficially similar to S. miamiensis in size and the degree of branching of its inflorescence (three orders). Sabal palmetto has smaller fruits (8.1 - 13.9 mm diam.) and smaller seeds (5.4 - 9.7 mm diam.).During the course of Zona's work on the palm, he visited a site in North Miami, which was identified by a local botanist as supporting a small population of Sabal miamiensis. These palms were initially named by Zona as belonging to S. miamiensis, but subsequently, he identified them as belonging to S. etonia or dwarf forms of S. palmetto. No living populations of S. miamiensis are known to exist.

Information Sources

Zizka, G. (1991). Flowering plants of Easter Island. Palmengarten, Frankfurt am Main.Walter, K.S. and Gillett, H.J. (eds.) (1998). 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. Compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre IUCN – The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.Small and others collected specimens of this palm from the rocky ridges known as Miami rocklands or Miami pine rocklands in Dade and Broward counties