Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Digital Library

Description

Several species of fan (palmate-leafed) palms occur in desert oases and wet tropical canyons in the Sonoran Desert region. They resemble the Washington palms except that they are smaller in stature and most have gray-green to blue-green foliage. Brahea armata in Baja California is the bluest; it creates an extraordinary sight in nature, where it is often found among white granite boulders with boojums and elephant trees, or in designed landscapes. It is uncommon in cultivation because it's very slow growing.

Range

Brahea armata grows in desert oases in north-central Baja California. Other species occur in oases in Sonora and in tropical deciduous forest.

Palms are among the most distinctive plant life forms and thus scarcely need description. Virtually all of the more than 2600 species in the world are instantly recognizable as palms, and only the unrelated cycads and another small family of tropical plants might confuse a nonbotanist. Because of their high recognition they're widely used in all kinds of media ” in movie sets to landscape designs and cartoons ” to represent a tropical setting or, in stark contrast, a desert oasis.

Palms are indeed tropical plants. Almost all species are native to tropical forests and very few can tolerate frost or dry soil. The existence of palms in the Sonoran Desert is one of many indications of its tropical connection.