Palmettos

Louisiana (from whence we are recently returned) has two common species of palmetto. These photos, from northeastern Louisiana, are of saw palmetto, Serenoa repens.

Here, in the background (bald cypress in foreground), is dwarf palmetto, Sabal minor.

The easiest way to tell the palmettos apart at a glance (I'm a poor botanist myself, but I can just manage to remember this) is that the leaflets on dwarf palmetto are conjoined for over half their length, forming a more "solid" leaf than the saw palmetto, the leaflets of which are conjoined only at the base. Up close, the namesake spines of the saw palmetto make it both memorable and unmistakable.

Both species can be good habitat for small herps, such as green tree frogs and green anoles.