HARRIET HOWARD HEITHAUS

The Washingtonia robusta, or Mexican fan palm, towers above most other trees in the landscape, as this specimen in Lakewood, at nearly 80 feet tall, demonstrates. A closer look at the crown shows its blooms.

HARRIET HOWARD HEITHAUS

The Washingtonia robusta, or Mexican fan palm, towers above most other trees in the landscape, as this specimen in Lakewood, at nearly 80 feet tall, demonstrates. A closer look at the crown shows its blooms.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

RELATED STORIES

• In Bloom: Pink showers
• In Bloom: Royal Poinciana
• In Bloom: Jacaranda's flowers grace SW Fla. this month

More At Home

• Deck the walls: Imperial Golf Estates couple’s art-centric decor has tale behind each frame
• Making It Green: How to choose foliage to obliterate eyesores, offer privacy or behave as traffic stopper
• Planting plans begin here at Collier Yard & Garden Show

Share and Enjoy [?]

If you’re looking for the quintessential come-to-Florida palm, it’s the Washingtonia robusta — the Mexican fam palm or petticoat palm. In the NBA league of palms, it can top out at more than 80 feet, towering over most any place it has been planted.

For most of the year it makes no statements other than to wave its huge, grass-green, mittlike fronds impressively in the wind. But in early June it flowers and fruits, sending out impressive banners of pea-sized white fruit on dangling stems that look like wedding-veil streamers. The fruit on this one in Lakewood has already faded to brown, but for a week it was a striking contrast of white against the bright green fronds.

As Ed Gilman and Dennis G. Watson point out in a U.S Forest Service broadsheet on the palm, the Washingonia robusta is better served in the landscape by being around a multistory building; all people in single- and two-story homes will see from their windows is its telephone-polelike trunk. The Washingontia filifera is a shorter palm, with a thicker trunk, and happier without much water, which makes it better choice all around in drought-prone Florida.

MEXICAN FAN PALM

Here is what the U.S. Forest Service has to say about the Mexican fan palm:

• Botanical name: Washingtonia robusta

• Pronunciation: wosh-ing-TOE-nee-uh roe-BUS-tuh

• Common names: Washington palm, Mexican Washington palm, sky duster

• Family: Arecaceae

• USDA hardiness zones: 9 through 11 (Collier and Lee counties are zones 9 to 10a)

• Origin: Mexico

• Height: 80 feet and higher

• Crown shape: palm; upright

• Crown density: open

• Growth rate: medium

• Uses: Tree lawns wider than 4 feet; residential or commercial street tree

• Type: Evergreen

• Where to buy: Nurseries specializing in palms under the Yellow Pages listings. If you have lots of time — it takes at least 15 years for them to reach maturity — you can find seeds for sale on eBay.