Palm bushes escaped Hurricane Ian's fury in Fort Myers and Southwest Florida : NPR

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Royal palm bushes line each side of McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers for miles. Almost the entire bushes survived Hurricane Ian.

Saul Martinez for NPR

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Saul Martinez for NPR

Royal palm bushes line each side of McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers for miles. Almost the entire bushes survived Hurricane Ian.

Saul Martinez for NPR

FORT MYERS, Fla. — When a hurricane assaults the coast, as Ian did to Southwest Florida, flip on the TV and the pictures the cameras have to point out are palm bushes flailed by the livid winds. The compulsory footage is meant to be visible proof of nature’s fury. And that it’s. However a palm tree standing as much as a hurricane is simply as a lot an emblem of the resilience of life, notably so in Fort Myers, the Metropolis of Palms.

I lastly counted them up: Ian is the twentieth hurricane I’ve lined for NPR —both the massive blow or the aftermath. My first was the monster, Hugo, whose eye handed straight over me in Charleston, S.C., in 1989.

What number of occasions I’ve sat in a sweltering lodge room, no energy, speaking to the Information Desk, and out of doors the shuddering home windows are the enduring palms, their trunks straining within the gale, their fronds flapping wildly behind them just like the hair of a damsel in misery.

However the palm bushes hardly ever break!

Artist Megan Kissinger poses for {a photograph} at her dwelling in Fort Myers.

Saul Martinez for NPR

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Saul Martinez for NPR

“The palm tree will get as a lot wind as all the opposite bushes, nevertheless it is aware of learn how to bend, it is aware of learn how to flex,” says Megan Kissinger, a wildlife artist and native Floridian who lives and paints palms in Fort Myers. “And I feel Floridians, in the event you’ve lived right here lengthy sufficient — and I have been by way of a couple of Class 5s, they’re fairly terrifying — however you get up the subsequent morning and also you do a rely of all your loved ones members and also you say, everybody’s right here. OK, let’s get to work cleansing up.”

Resilience — human and arboreal.

Because it occurs, the swish gulf-side metropolis of Fort Myers will now be identified for taking a direct hit from Class 4 Ian. However it’s additionally an apt locale for an ode to the palm tree.

Wild parrots sit on palm bushes on McGregor Boulevard.

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Wild parrots sit on palm bushes on McGregor Boulevard.

Saul Martinez for NPR

“Fort Myers’ nickname is the Metropolis of Palms,” says Karen Maxwell, who meets me on the again gate of the Edison-Ford Winter Estates. She works there as a horticulturist and teaches a preferred class known as Palm Studying. The plush grounds home the stately winter houses of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, in addition to a analysis lab, botanical gardens, museum and backyard store. The property backs as much as the Caloosahatchee River.

There may be additionally a palmetum. “Suppose arboretum,” Maxwell says, “however with palms.”

“Foxtail palm, bottle palm, buccaneer palm, thatch palm …” she intones as she inventories the younger bushes earlier than her. “Christmas palm, pembana palm, seashore palm, macaw palm, black palm. And so they all did high-quality.”

The Florida state tree is the sabal palm. However essentially the most well-known species on this city is the royal palm. Maxwell stands subsequent to a stout royal that needs to be 6 ft in circumference.

Horticulture specialist Karen Maxwell leans in opposition to a royal palm tree. “What makes these bushes excellent in a hurricane is that this tree can bend nearly 40 to 50 levels and never break.”

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“That is our royal palm and in the event you’d come as much as this you’d suppose you are knocking on a column of stable cement,” she says, knocking on the trunk. “What makes these bushes excellent in a hurricane is that this tree can bend nearly 40 to 50 levels and never break. As a result of it has no branches. It isn’t inflexible.”

The palm tree is a monocot, nearer to the grass household than broadleaf bushes. It grows from the highest. The within isn’t arduous and there are not any tree rings. It is a assortment of 1000’s of vascular straws that carry vitamins and water from the bottom to the crown.

Palm bushes come in additional than 2,500 species, principally occurring within the huge heat areas between the Tropic of Most cancers and the Tropic of Capricorn. They love a very good tempest.

Left: On the dwelling of artist Megan Kissinger in Fort Myers is a ponytail palm. Prime proper: The trunk of a sabal palm (cabbage tree) may be seen. Backside proper: The bottom of a screw palm tree is seen at Kissinger’s dwelling.

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Saul Martinez for NPR

“All of them are tailored for wind, a lot of them are tailored for flooding, and lots of are additionally tailored for salt,” Maxwell says. Briefly, millennia of pure choice have completely tailored the palm tree for an occasion like Hurricane Ian. “They’ve the instruments to outlive,” Maxwell says, grinning appreciatively.

After a hurricane, the bottom is usually affected by brown palm fronds. Whereas it is a chore for the town, it is a good factor for the bushes. The wind has pruned the lifeless fronds. The dwell, inexperienced fronds are robust and aerodynamic and infrequently break off. In the event that they do, they develop again.

Amid raked-up heaps of lifeless fronds, Phil Buck sits on the trunk of a large royal that toppled within the storm. He is a board-certified grasp arborist who’s accountable for the tree division for Crawford Landscaping, based mostly in Naples. He is overlooking McGregor Avenue in Fort Myers, which is famously lined with royal palms.

Horticulture specialist Phil Buck stands close to rows of royal palm bushes in Fort Myers. “As you’ll be able to see, they’re fairly beat up,” Buck says. “However they’re nonetheless standing.”

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“As you’ll be able to see, they’re fairly beat up,” Buck says. “However they’re nonetheless standing.”

McGregor Boulevard — bordered with some 1,800 royal palms, some taller than 75 ft — is how Fort Myers got here to be known as the Metropolis of Palms.

“A few of these bushes alongside McGregor, I do not know the precise date however they’ll dwell to 100 years or extra,” says Buck. “And we have had numerous storms, none as extreme as Hurricane Ian. However clearly they’re nonetheless right here. They’re nonetheless alive and kicking.”

The English statesman and scientific thinker Francis Bacon made an statement that effectively fits the sensible adaptability of the palm tree: “We can not command nature besides by obeying her.”