{"id":76097,"date":"2025-08-18T19:06:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/76097\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T19:06:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:06:20","slug":"tall-tale-of-historic-palm-tree-that-wasnt-endangered-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/76097\/","title":{"rendered":"Tall tale of historic palm tree that wasn\u2019t endangered after all"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh revealed in 2021 that it would need to chop down the city\u2019s oldest tree, there was outcry among residents \u2014 not least due to its endangered status around the world.<\/p>\n

Botanists were reassured, however, that specimens had been propagated to help the global conservation project. The monumental Sabal palm, they were told, would live on.<\/p>\n

But then, with the chainsaw hovering<\/a>, there was a revelation. It was decided that the revered palm, which had drawn people to the glasshouse for nearly 230 years, was not endangered and was actually \u201ccommon as muck\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Karine<\/p>\n

Karine Polwart, once an artist-in-residence at the Botanics, made her Edinburgh Fringe debut with Windblown<\/p>\n

COLIN HATTERSLEY<\/p>\n

The fabled tree was not the endangered Sabal bermudana, a botanist concluded, and was instead the prospering Sabal mexicana.<\/p>\n

The discovery of the palm\u2019s true identity after two centuries is revealed in a five-star show at the Edinburgh Fringe created by Karine Polwart.<\/a> Windblown charts the tree\u2019s growth and idolisation under the care of the Royal Botanic Garden.<\/p>\n

Polwart, a singer-songwriter who has been an artist-in-residence at the Botanics, builds the tree up during her set as the endangered Sabal bermudana, or Bermuda palmetto. It was placed on the IUCN Red List of threatened species with Endangered status in 2016.<\/p>\n

And then, Polwart told audiences at the Queen\u2019s Hall during the now-finished run of her show, a botanist became suspicious about the shape of the palm\u2019s seeds.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Axel Dalberg Poulsen getting the measure of the palm at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<\/p>\n

ALAN SIMPSON<\/p>\n

Instead of being one of the few Bermuda palmettos, it was, Polwart said, \u201cCommon as muck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Axel Dalberg Poulsen, a tropical botanist, says in a video on the Royal Botanic Garden<\/a> website that he recognised the mistaken identity as parts of the palm were being selected to put into its Herbarium for conservation and research purposes.<\/p>\n

The 60ft-high palm had been deemed too large to transfer along with other plants from the Tropical Palm House which was to be renovated as part of its Biome Project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interesting part of my job was to check the identification,\u201d Poulsen said, adding: \u201cFor 200 years, this plant has been called Sabal bermudana, but when I checked all the more recent literature, actually it turns out to be Sabal mexicana.\u201d<\/p>\n

The self-pollinating palm had arrived by ship in Edinburgh from Bermuda via Germany in the 1790s and was transported to the current site in the 1820s.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

The palm, housed within the greenhouse of the botanic garden in 1874, was shipped to the country in the 1790s<\/p>\n

Before the five-day run of her show at the festival, Polwart said that there had been \u201ctremendous sadness\u201d among garden staff at the confirmation the palm would need to be chopped down rather than transplanted.<\/p>\n

She told The Scotsman that the \u201cpalm mattered to the people there\u201d. One of the horticulturalists \u201ctalked about it as a quiet, sentient presence \u2026 he said it was like being in a room with an elephant\u201d, she added. <\/p>\n

Simon Allan, the horticulturalist who looked after the palm, said at the time of its demise that it was a sad moment. While the 200-year-old tree was in decline, it could have lived for another 30 years, he said. <\/p>\n

He said at the time that there was nothing in the gardens with more \u201chistorical and sentimental value\u201d.<\/p>\n

And while it is now not the rare, endangered Bermuda palmetto there is still a significance to the late Sabal mexicana.<\/p>\n

At the time it was first put on display in the 1790s the Sabal mexicana would still not be described to science for another 40 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh revealed in 2021 that it would need to chop down the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-76097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}