Plant · P-518

Saw Palmetto

Serenoa repens

Saw Palmetto is a clump-forming evergreen fan palm of the south-eastern North American coastal plain, behaving more like a rhizome-spreading shrub than a tree. Its main value is medicinal - the ripe fruit is the source of the herbal extract taken for an enlarged prostate and urinary complaints - alongside fruit that feeds black bears, deer and box turtles, and stands that shelter the Florida scrub jay, burrowing owl and other wildlife. It resprouts readily after fire and forms broad clonal thickets, so it is managed with a mown or grazed margin rather than by removing individual plants; its leaf stalks carry sharp teeth along both edges, the saw the common name refers to.