Apr 08 2007
Palm Trees - Visions of Tropical Paradise
A palm tree, real, photographed or artistically rendered, is an internationally recognized symbol for a tropical paradise full of romance and relaxation.
Palm trees were a dream of warmth and sunshine while scraping dense layers of ice from the car windshield during Iowa ice storms in a typical winter workday for many years before I left for warmer weather in 1989.
Living in the sub-tropics of Houston, palm trees are an every-day every-where visual that blends into the background of traffic, variety of everlasting greenery and urban sprawl. Oppressive heat and humidity - hours of traffic snarls - a creative and artistic mind - frozen winter wastelands combined with the tropics - results: a frozen palm tree painting.
Noticeable palm trees are generally tall, graceful and elegant in magazines, movies and picture postcards. I took the digital picture palm tree photographs below in Houston in July 2001 so marketing is realistic in presenting it to us with it’s best face forward.
BUT, Houston is also full of other palm tree varieties which are quite lovely - many resembling a large or gigantic bush more than the elegant Mexican Palmetto (Sabal Mexicana).
The Dwarf Palmetto (Sabal Minor) is a favorite of mine. They resemble fans flowing from a fountain. These exotic trees planted in the middle of the road median brings an exotic but calming effect to Richmond Avenue among other major Houston traffic arteries.
Fan type palm leaves radiate like sun rays in a child’s drawing. Feather type palms remind me of feathers, fern leaves or miniature weeping willows.
Below are also photographs from an Iowa winter and some that were taken in Oklahoma. Then of course, we also have the glorious Galveston Beach Gulf of Mexico … these were taken in 1989 … not long after I came to Texas the very first time.
I still love seeing palm trees! They fascinate me and bring a warmth of joy to my life just seeing them as I drive around the Houston area.
Perhaps I will finally get my long-awaited palm tree article written this year … it has only been sitting there waiting for me to get back to it for several years … good news about palm trees … they are still tropical and they are still fascinating to me and many other people as much today as they were several years ago … palm trees just do not go out of fashion.
