cabbage palmetto

American  

noun

1. a fan palm, Sabal palmetto, of the southeastern U.S.: the state tree of Florida and South Carolina.

---

cabbage palmetto British  

noun

1. a tropical American fan palm, Sabal palmetto, with edible leaf buds and leaves used in thatching

---

Etymology

Origin of cabbage palmetto

An Americanism dating back to 1795–1805

Example Sentences

The cabbage palmetto affords shade, kindling, bed, and food.

From Composition-Rhetoric by Brooks, Stratton D.

Their vegetables are chiefly sweet potatoes, large and much praised melons and pumpkins, and, if I may classify it with vegetables, the tender new growth of the tree called the cabbage palmetto.

From The Seminole Indians of Florida Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 469-532 by MacCauley, Clay