Roystonea oleracea

R. oleracea grows up to 40 m tall, with a distinctive, solitary, light gray, erect, cylindrical trunk up to 22 m. Its appearance has been described to be like a marble column (Zona, 1996). Leaves are in the crown at the top of the stem. Flowers are borne in large stalked panicles revealed when the leaf-sheaths beneath them drop off;abundant blue-violet fruit are small, obovoid and without stalks. The fruits turn purplish-black when ripe (Palmpedia, 2014). The roots can often be seen emerging from the stem just above the soil level. Individual trees have 16-22 or 20-22 leaves, 3-5 m long with leaflets of about 1 m in two horizontal ranks;leafstalks about 1.5 m long, broadening to surround and sheath stem Leaf segments are arrayed in two planes on either side of the rachis, however, in the past there was some disagreement in the literature on this characteristic. The species is noteworthy and relatively easy to identify for several reasons, one being that the leaves of the crown typically do not hang much below the horizontal, unlike other species in which the leaves droop and obscure the shaft of the crown. The species is also distinguished within its genus for an unopened peduncular bract which is strongly clavate with an acuminate tip. Groups of rachillae are undulate, forming wavy curves with amplitudes of 4 cm or more (Zona, 1996).