Windmill Palm Tree
This Windmill Palm Tree is a great accent palm for landscaping that does not take up large areas. It is used to compliment other tropicals in the landscaping and won't block features around it in the landscaping. The Windmill Palm is very slow growing compared to other palm trees and is also one of the most cold tolerant palm trees in the world. It has short very dark green fronds and a dark colored furry trunk. Another great feature about ther Windmill Palm is that this palm does not have thorns which makes it ideal for sidewalk areas, pool areas, or other areas of traffic. This palm tree is used greatly in commercial and residential landscaping around the Houston area ands many other parts of Texas.
The greatest reported cold tolerance is −27.5 °C (−17.5 °F) by four specimens in Plovdiv, Bulgaria during a severe cold spell on January 6, 1993, and placing it in USDA Zone 5; more commonly lower tolerance limits of −15 °C to −20 °C (5 °F to −4 °F) are cited for mature plants. Young plants are less hardy, and can be damaged by only −8 °C (17.6 °F). This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
The species was brought from Japan (Dejima) to Europe by the German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold in 1830. The common name refers to Chusan Island (now Zhoushan Island), where Robert Fortune first saw cultivated specimens of the species. In 1849, Fortune smuggled Windmill palm plants from China to the Kew Horticultural Gardens and the Royal garden of Prince Albert of England. The Windmill Palm was later named Trachycarpus fortunei, after him. It was first described by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius in 1850 in his Historia Naturalis Palmarum but under the illegitimate name of "Chamaerops excelsa".
The names Chamaerops excelsus and Trachycarpus excelsus have occasionally been misapplied to Trachycarpus fortunei; this is correctly a synonym of Rhapis excelsa, with the confusion arising due to a misunderstanding of Japanese vernacular names.
Trachycarpus fortunei (Windmill Palm) has been cultivated in China and Japan for thousands of years, for its coarse but very strong leaf sheath fibre, used for making rope, sacks, and other coarse cloth where great strength is important. The extent of this cultivation means that the exact natural range of the species is uncertain.