The beloved palm tree, cultivated for almost 230 years at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh (RBGE), has been discovered as a botanical mystery.
Nearly eight months after it was cut down to make way for a major restoration project at his Tropical Palm House, due diligence experts have now determined that the 60-foot treasure was not an example of the endangered Sabal bermudana.
On the other hand, if, as is now suspected, the long-lived specimen is Sabal mexicana, then it was a new species that had not yet been described to science for about 40 years after it was put on display in the 1790s.
Sadie Barber, Research Collections Manager at RBGE, said: “The palm that we had for 200 years turned out not to be what we imagined it to be.
“Now we know that our Sabal is not actually Sabal bermudana. It’s most likely Sabal mexicana, although it’s only through flowers or DNA sequencing that we’ll know for sure.
“That doesn’t make the palm any less important in terms of its historical relationship with RBGE, but it shifts the focus away from Bermuda.”
The palm was shipped to the Port of Leith via Germany in the 1790s and originally grew on the former RBGE site at Leith Walk until the entire plant collection was moved to its current home in Inverleith in the 1820s. Thousands of plants have been removed from A. - Palm homes were listed last year to allow construction to begin on an ambitious Edinburgh Biomes project to protect the garden as a global resource for future generations.
Experts have dismantled the historic Sabal palm and the seedlings have been grown so that visitors can watch its offspring grow for “another 200 years.”
It was dissected to create a durable specimen of the Herbarium and a detailed botanical illustration was completed along with a close-up photograph to confirm the identity and create a free resource for scientists and other interested parties now and in the future.
During the documentation procedure, Scott Zona, a leading authority on the sabal family in the US, highlighted some subtle differences in the biology of the various species.
RBGE tropical botanist Dr. Axel Dalberg Poulsen said: “Using Scott’s detailed monograph of the 15 known species of the genus Sabal, I have narrowed it down to three possible species.
“Just last week Scott reviewed our evidence and we now have a clearer picture of the true identity of the flagship palm from Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
“This is not Sabal bermudana, as the label has long said, but quite possibly Sabal mexicana.
“The German botanist CFP von Martius described Sabal mexicana as a species only in 1838. Thus, before that, the palm tree in Botany was actually a new species.
Full verification can only be achieved with DNA sequencing or after the flowers of its offspring are collected and examined, which can take several decades for the young palms to mature.