How to Grow and Care for Fishtail palms

The himalayan Fishtail Palm (*Caryota maxima*) is a fast-growing evergreen tropical tree named for its leaves that are shaped like a fish's tail fin. It can live from 40 to 100 years and blooms small, inconspicuous flowers, with male and female on the same tree. The plant produces a black drupe-like fruit that is toxic. It thrives in full sun or partial shade.

The giant fishtail palm is a monocarpic flowering plant. This plant flowers only once after ten years, and then it dies. Its seed and trunk flesh is toxic to the touch and should be handled with caution. Because this palm can reach 20 meters or more in height, it is considered a tree.

Caryota mitis, known as the clustering fishtail palm or fishtail palm, is a species of palm native to Tropical Asia from India to Java to southern China, now sparingly naturalized in southern Florida and in parts of Africa and Latin America. The species was originally described from Vietnam in 1790. In Florida, it grows in hummocks and in disturbed wooded areas. Caryota mitis has clustered stems up to 10 m tall and 15 cm in diameter. Leaves can be up to 3 m long. Flowers are purple, and the fruits—harmful to humans—are dark purple or red.

Jaggery palm is a type of palm tree that is grown as a popular ornamental tree in parks and tropical gardens. The plant's leaves and pulped trunk can be fed to elephants. The tree's stalks can be made into sugar which is used in cooking and to make treacle. Jaggery palm has fibrous leaves that are woven into baskets in Cambodia.