The TCBH! Climate Change Report: A Palm Tree Grows Outside
Philadelphia I went out today and checked on my palm tree. It’s
a small thing: the trunk is only about a foot from the ground,
with the palmate fronds spreading out from the upper part. New
fronds appear as compressed blades sticking up from the center.
They have a kind of fuzz on them, like the lanugo on a newborn
baby. What makes my little palm unusual is it sits in my front
yard in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles north of the
edge of Philadelphia. It’s clearly not a native species to this
area, but it is doing surprisingly well. Although we’ve had a
number of nights now when the temperature dropped below
freezing, including two when it dropped to about 26 degrees, the
fronds are still bright green, and the shoots have continued to
grow. While the palm is pretty, and striking in its own way,
standing out against the backdrop of deciduous trees that have
finally shed all their leaves for the winter, it is also a
little disturbing -- a harbin