Palm Trees – The Oddest ‘Trees’ in CV

Most of the trees we view as typical Southern California trees, such as pepper trees and eucalyptus, are not natives. Another non-native tree that is viewed as a typical California tree is the palm tree. The image of the palm tree has become an icon of Southern California and rightly so as they are everywhere, prolific across our landscape. We have many great examples of palm trees here in CV. The parking lot of Ralph’s has a large planting, and there are a couple of tall beauties outside the local UA Theater.

But wait… back up a little. Palm“trees”? Trees provide shade. Palms don’t. Trees provide wood. Palms don’t. Trees do a lot of things that palm trees don’t do. Why? The answer is simple. Palm trees aren’t trees. They are more a form of grass, like corn, wheat and bamboo.

So how did they become the iconic “tree” of our area? Perhaps fittingly for California, their popularity has a little to do with religion and a whole lot to do with marketing and image. The Spanish missionaries who came in the 1700s planted palm trees around the California missions because of their Biblical references, and their botanical association with the Holy Land. Later the romance of the missions played into promoting the palm’s popularity.

But marketing was the overriding factor in their rise as a dominant tree locally.

Remember that Los Angeles was initially a semi-desert, for the most part a treeless, dusty landscape of low sagebrush. But it did have sunshine and good weather. When late 19th century land speculators began to work on the problem of selling desert land to Easterners used to a green landscape, they hit upon the tactic of calling Southern California “semi-tropical” and “Mediterranean.” And what better symbol of the tropics or the Mediterranean than palm trees? They were exotic. They made people think of the warmth of the Middle East. On top of that, in Victorian society the wealthy had greenhouses and palm courts that featured exotic plants such as palms. Palms came to represent wealth. During this same period, the French Riviera became popular in the imaginations of the world, and there were palm trees (also imported). So the palm became associated with leisure as well.

On top of the image the palm created, physically the palm tree was a developer’s dream tree. The root ball is small and easily transportable, so full-grown trees could be moved around like furniture. They didn’t have branches and leaves to cover signage or block views, and they were fairly uniform. Palm trees thrived in SoCal’s climate, some varieties doing better here than in the areas from which they actually came.

And so the great palm tree plantings began in the 1880s and continued, peaking in the 1930s. In the run-up to the 1932 Olympics, 40,000 palm trees were planted. Today, they are everywhere.

But that is changing. Palms have a life span of about 100 years, so those trees planted in LA’s development years are beginning to die off. Palms don’t fit the needs of modern urban forestry needs in LA. They can be thirsty plants and they don’t cool the streets with shade. They can be extremely flammable as well, an important factor in fire-prone SoCal. As a result, most street-tree palms that die will not be renewed, and will be replaced with varieties more suited to a landscape that is becoming hotter and drier.

Palms will never disappear from the skyline of Los Angeles. Some cities that prioritize image over utility, such as Hollywood and Beverly Hills, will continue to maintain their iconic palm tree lined streets. And the palm continues to be a popular landscaping plant for homes and businesses. There are even a few drought-tolerant varieties, although not as majestic as the big palms we’re used to.

Urban trees will be increasingly important as our community becomes more crowded. They must provide shade and prevent erosion, tasks the palm can’t fulfill. But despite its unsuitability, the iconic palm tree is here to stay. CV’s oddest “tree” will always be part of our landscape.

  mike lawler