Livistonia australis
Cabbage Palm is a slow-growing but long-lived palm, and can eventually reach a height of 30m or occasionally even higher.
It starts out with a few fronds that appear to grow straight out of the ground, but eventually establishes a solid trunk of up to 50cm diameter. Each frond is 3m to 4m long, with a broad circular ‘leaf’ (lamina) about 1m across. This palm’s creamy-coloured flowers appear in summer, in panicles that appear among the leaves. Individually, the flowers are small but massed on the inflorescence they are a beautiful lacy feature among the leaves. Indeed, in full flower, Cabbage palms are conspicuous on the escarpment when seen from urban Illawarra kilometres away. The flowers are followed by fruit in autumn. The fruit is 1cm to 1.5cm round, starting out red and becoming black as it ripens. Mature plants can produce massive amounts of fruit, very attractive to a number of bird species. When the fronds fall off the plant and die they turn a beautiful straw colour, and in natural settings create a striking display on the forest floor.
All information is from the Growing Illawarra Natives website. Read the full entry here
