Webster’s defines it as: 1. (Botanically) Any endogenous tree of the order Palm [ae] or Palmace [ae]; a palm tree. It goes on to define endogenous as increasing by internal growth and elongation at the summit, instead of externally, and having no distinction of pith, wood, and bark, as the palm or a cornstalk. A palm is tree like any perennial woody plant of considerable size (usually over 20 feet high) and growing with a single trunk. So, at least according to Webster's, a palm is really a tree!
Palms are perennial woody plants, often of majestic size. The trunk is usually erect and rarely branched, and it has a roughened exterior composed of the persistent bases of the leaf stalks. The leaves are borne in a terminal crown and are supported on stout, sheathing, often prickly petioles. There are about 1,000 species known, nearly all of them growing in tropical or semitropical regions.
