One of the symbols of Florida is the palm tree.

I read up on palms in the “sunshine state” and discovered that there are 27 varieties that grow in the “wild” and a couple thousand “imports.” Of course, here in our Kings Point community, they come from tree farms so we have thousands and each seems unique.

At the South Club pool, where I spend a great deal of my time, there is a nice variety of palms. I find myself mesmerized by them. In my opinion, the prettiest is one has fronds that look like feathers which is the tallest one on the right side of the above picture.

For the past week or so, a huge black bird (maybe it’s a crow or raven) has been building a nest high in one of the taller palms (shown on the left side of the above photo). He’s still determinedly dragging building materials up to the top of that tree. I’d love to see what his “home” looks like. It’s got to be huge!!

There’s a wonderful variety of palms. Some are well over 100 feet tall, some look like pineapple tops, some grow in low bunches. There are those with ball shaped tops, others with only a frond or two. Rough trunks, smooth trunks, cross-hatched trunks. All pleasures for the eye.

After the hurricanes in 2004, many of the trees were damaged, but surprisingly most survived wind force that would have cleared-out vegetation in the north. When I came down here right after the storms, I was surprised how they’d “weathered the storm” but some were pushed over at odd angles. You can still see a couple of these crooked reminders along Sun City Boulevard (SR 674).

Palms are a lovely back-drop to our life here in sunny Florida.