cabbage tree

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A name given to many species of palms the tender growing leaf-buds of which are used as a vegetable. The cabbage-tree, or cabbage-palmetto, of the southern United States, Sabal Palmetto, is a fan-leafed palm growing to the height of from 30 to 50 feet. The cabbage-tree of the West Indies, the tree most generally known as the cabbage-palm, is a species of Oreodoxa (formerly included in the genus Areca), O. oleracea, a lofty and graceful palm with a straight cylindrical trunk, sometimes 150 or 200 feet high, bearing a head of long pinnate leaves. The cabbage is the terminal leaf-bud, the removal of which, though often done, destroys the tree. The Australian cabbage-tree is a fan-leafed palm, Livistona australis.
2. n. A name given to species of Andira, leguminous trees of tropical America, bearing racemes of red flowers and roundish, hard, one-seeded pods, and yielding the anthelmintic cabbage-tree bark of pharmacists. Jamaica cabbage-tree bark, also called worm-bark, is obtained from A. inermis, a native of the West Indies, and the Surinam bark from A. retusa, found in Surinam and Cayenne. A similar bark is furnished by A. anthelmintica of Brazil.
3. n. In New Zealand, an arborescent liliaceous plant, Cordyline indivisa.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. a name given to palms having a terminal bud called a cabbage, as the Sabal Palmetto of the United States, and the Euterpe oleracea and Oreodoxa oleracea of the West Indies.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. elegant tree having either a single trunk or a branching trunk each with terminal clusters of long narrow leaves and large panicles of fragrant white, yellow or red flowers; New Zealand
2. n. Australian palm with leaf buds that are edible when young
3. n. tree with shaggy unpleasant-smelling toxic bark and yielding strong durable wood; bark and seeds used as a purgative and vermifuge and narcotic