Phylum:
Angiosperm
Class:
Monocotyledonae
Order:
Arecales
Family:
Arecaceae
Flowering palm trees
Genus:
Washingtonia
Species:
W.filifera
Common Name:
Desert fan palm
Description:
The desert fan palm, also know as the California fan palm or just the California palm, is a flowering plants that is an evergreen monocot with a tree like growth habit, which grows to about 60 or more feet tall, has a fan spread of between 10 and 20 feet and typically live from 100 to 250 year. It has a sturdy, columnar trunk and waxy, fan-shaped (palmate) leaves.
The fronds are made up of a petiole about 6 feet long, bearing a fan of leaflets from 5 to 6.5 feet long. They have long, thread-like, white fibers, and the petioles are pure green with yellow edges and filifera-filaments, between the segments.
The trunk is gray and tan, and the leaves are gray green. When the fronds die, they remain attached and drop down to cloak the trunk in a wide skirt. The shelter that the skirt creates provides a microhabitat for many small birds and invertebrates.
Range:
The desert fan palm is native to the southwestern United States and Baja California, Mexico. Primary populations are also found in desert riparian habitats, near watercourses in the states of Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Hawaii, Utah as well as in the US Virgin Islands and Austrailia.
