Discussion

Cycads and Palms

There is a common misconception that cycads and palm trees are closely related, or that a palm tree is a type of cycad. Neither is true. There are a variety of both types of plants, and instances of each can look very much alike, but they are not near relatives. The photo below shows a cycad from South Africa (Encephalartos).

These are palm trees

The leaves (fronds), trunks, and general shapes look very much alike. This is an example of convergent evolution.

A key difference between cycads and palms, however, is that cycads produce seeds in cone-like structures, much like pine trees, with the seeds exposed to the air. This photo is of the Encephalartos, shown in the first photo.

Palms are flowering plants (angiosperms) as illustrated in this photo of a king palm (Archontophoenix alexandrae). (Don't confuse the king palm with the king sego palm (Cycas revoluta), a type of cycad native to Japan.)

Palm tree seeds are enclosed in fruit of various types. The berries below develop from fertilized king palm blossoms.

The flowers of various palm trees can look quite different, as illustrated by this photo of a Chinese fan palm.

There is a wide variety of palm tree fruit. Coconut palm fruit tends to be rather large compared with others. Coconut milk, extracted from grated pulp from mature coconuts, is highly nutritious and especially valued for its vegetable fat content. A variety of products are produced from coconut milk, distinguished mostly by the percentage of fat they contain.

Dates are another agricultural product from palm trees. About 90% of the dates grown in the U.S. are produced in California; mostly in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs and vicinity). In 2020, California produced almost 50,000 tons of dates

Another terrifically important agricultural product from palm trees is oil. The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) produces two types of oil; one from squeezing the pulp of the fruit, and the other from the stone or kernel at the center. Palm oil is produced in 42 countries around the world, but 85% of it comes from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Palm oil's properties make it incredibly useful. It is in close to 50% of packaged food products, including pizza, doughnuts and chocolate. It is in other products, too, like deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick.

Palm trees have ornamental uses, too.

The only palm tree native to the American west and Baja California is the California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera). In ideal conditions, it can grow over 80 feet tall. Its fronds are up to 13 feet long. One of the unique characteristics it has is that fronds don't fall off when dead without help. Rather, they droop down, forming a skirt around the trunk. California fan palms can live from 80 to 250 years.

These California fan palms are located in the Thousand Palms Oasis, Coachella Valley Preserve, Thousand Palms, California.

49 Palms Oasis, Joshua Tree National Park.

Borrego Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Sadly, a juvenile set fire to that grove in January, 2020.

The good news is that rangers say the trees survived the fire and will regrow.

Palm trees fading into the sunset.

Artwork

Rinpa School

Rinpa wasn't a school in the usual sense. It was a group of artists spread out over time who admired each other's work and painted with similar styles, often described as decorative. The first recognized Rinpa artists were the team of Tawaraya Sōtatsu (1570 – 1640) and Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637). Sōtatsu is credited with creating the tarashikomi painting technique in which a second coat of paint is applied over a first, still damp, coat. The next most prominent Rinpa artist was Ogata Kōrin (1658 – 1716). Part of the Rinpa school's name is taken from part of Kōrin's name.

The woodblock print below, published in 1831 by an unknown Rinpa school artist, is from an album, "Rimpa Hyakka Fu" (Hemp palm trees).

Itō Jakuchū (1716 – 1800)

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

Hiroshige is considered to be one of the last great masters of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. The opening of Japan to the west in the decade after his death was the start of a rush by Japanese artists to adapt Western art techniques to Japanese art. Hiroshige produced many notable works of art.

One of Hiroshige's most famous ukiyo-e series is Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō. The Tōkaidō (literally "eastern sea route") was a government road connecting Edo (Tōkyō) with Kyōto. There were originally fifty-three government-sanctioned post stations along the way for travelers to pause on their journey. This 1832-3 "Waitresses at an Inn at Akasaka" is number 37 in the series. Though considered landscapes, people were important elements in most of them.

Ohara Koson (1877 – 1945)

Koson was a member of the shin-hanga movement, dedicated to the restoration of traditional subjects and values to Japanese art in the early 20th century. This print titled Two Sparrows and Palm Trees was produced no later than 1912.

Takeuchi Seihō (1864 – 1942)

Seihō was one of the founders of the nihon-ga movement of the 20th century. Like shin-hanga, nihon-ga aimed to restore traditionally Japanese values to Japanese art. The difference is that while shin-hanga was exclusively focused on hanga (woodblock prints), nihon-ga dealt with other media. I've been unable to determine what year this 6-fold byōbu was painted.