Cabbage Palm

Cabbage Palm is native to parts of Southeast Asia, Australia and parts of Polynesia.

It can grow to 13 feet in height and has multiple uses among indigenous communities. Its leaves were used to make items of clothing including skirts worn in dance performances. The Hawaiian hula skirt and the Tongan dance dress is made up of its leaves and decorated with some yellow or red leaves.

The rhizome is very sweet when mature and eaten as food, used as medicine and also made into a liquor. The leaves were once used to thatch the roofs of houses and to wrap and store food. The plant or its roots is referred to in most Polynesian languages as tÄ«.”