Elegance is a quality that may not be essential to beauty, and yet when elegance is present, beauty is definitely there, too. It is thus appropriate, I suppose, that Hollywood — where elegance is highly valued — should have a skyline which, when pictured on postcards, invariably includes palm trees . At their best, palms impart an elegance unmatched by any other tree.
Yet the palms that dominate the skyline in Hollywood and the Los Angeles area in general are not the best representatives of this tree where elegance is concerned. The iconic Hollywood tree is known as Mexican or needle palm (Washingtonia robusta). A skinny trunk that may reach 80 feet in height is topped with an inelegant mophead of tattered fronds.
These fronds are hazardous when they detach from the tree at such a height and the fruits that drop contain seeds that sprout in sidewalk cracks, in lawns, and just about everywhere else. Some have even given these trees the uncomplimentary moniker of “California dandelions” because of their weedy nature. Palms are generally divided into two categories based on the form of their leaves or fronds: fan palms, such as the one described above, and feather palms.
If you are looking for elegance, date palms, all of which have feathery fronds, are a good place to start, albeit with some reservations. Four date palm species are locally seen. The date palm grown for its familiar edible crop (Phoenix dactylifera) has attractive fronds that may reach 20 feet in length.
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