Sabal Clade 1 identified by Scott Zona in 1990 has only one species - Sabal minor - that was recognized at the time, unlike the species richness of the other three clades. Nonetheless, the more and more I study S. minor, the more inclined I am to believe it's a species complex similar to Picea glauca (white spruce) and Prunus serotina (American black cherry) with numerous subspecies and regional variants rather than a single homogenous species. After all, we still hadn't cracked the parentage of Sabal brazoriensis for decades after 1990, nor did we know yet then that S. tamaulipensis was a direct sister species of S. minor instead of being in Clade 3 or Clade 4 like other Mexican Sabal species are.

I've identified what may well be four separate subspecies of S. minor, excluding of course the brazoriensis hybrid that has most likely existed since at least the Eemian interglacial (perhaps much longer) and the sister S. tamaulipensis which are both distinct, recently-identified species within Clade 1 in their own right.

1. Sabal minor subsp. louisiana - native to Louisiana's Mississippi River Delta. Retreated to the Louisiana continental shelf during glacial periods' stadials. Can reach 10 feet tall aboveground. Hardy to USDA Zone 7b (broadly the same as S. brazoriensis but with less binary individual variation). Has no regional variants.

2. Sabal minor subsp. mississippiensis - the interior population with numerous regional variants that have subterranean trunks and generally superior cold-hardiness to the other three subspecies (perhaps to the warmer half of USDA Zone 6b). Retreated to the continental shelf of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, likely also the parts of Louisiana and Texas slightly colder than what S. minor subsp. louisiana and S. brazoriensis could handle.

3. Sabal minor subsp. emeraldisle - native to North Carolina and probably Virginia. Can reach 6 feet tall. Sought refuge along the Fall Line of North Carolina during glacial-period Heinrich events to escape the freezing marine layer over the supercharged, iceberg-laden Labrador Current but still retain enough Bermuda High influence to avoid the continental interior air deeper into the Piedmont. Hardy to USDA Zone 7a. Has no regional variants.

4. Sabal minor subsp. floridanum - native to the Florida Peninsula, Georgia's Coastal Plain and South Carolina. Populations on the western side of the Florida Peninsula and Eastern Continental Divide running down the spine of the peninsula had no need to seek refuge during glacial maxima nor Heinrich events; their small stature (on par with S. minor subsp. mississippiensis) is due to S. palmetto and some Caribbean tropical palms filling the tree niche already, not due to climate forcing. Cold-hardy to at least Zone 7b, probably 7a (I don't know).

Now for the variants. I'll start with the variants of S. minor subsp. mississippiensis, which seems to have the most variety.

1. Sabal minor var. texensis. Native to Texas.

2. Sabal minor var. mccurtain. Native to McCurtain County, Oklahoma.

3. Sabal minor var. arkansas. Native to Arkansas and the interior of Louisiana.

4. Sabal minor var. tennessensis. Native to West Tennessee, Mississippi and nearby parts of Alabama. If Middle Tennessee has undiscovered wild populations, these are probably also part of this variant.

5. Sabal minor var. cherokee. Native to the Coosa Valley of Alabama, possibly also into Northwest Georgia and (less likely) even extreme southern East Tennessee.

There are probably three variants of S. minor subsp. floridanum.

1. Sabal minor var. blountstown. Native to parts of the Florida Panhandle that didn't turn into continental climates during the Last Glacial Maximum.

2. Sabal minor var. myers. Native to the western half of the Florida Peninsula, parts of Georgia's coastal plain that remained subtropical consistently and the Eastern Continental Divide running down the topographic spine of those areas.

3. Sabal minor var. tybee. Native to South Carolina and the parts of Georgia and eastern half of Florida that weren't so lucky during Heinrich events, representing a more recent recolonization but still at a far more localized scale than the interior variants of S. minor subsp. mississippiensis.

Really, I wish someone qualified would study these and also try to pin down dates for the S. brazoriensis hybridization and S. tamaulipensis speciation - and document definitively wild populations in Virginia (although they'd need an expedition and perhaps contact with Native Americans to find them first) and Tennessee (a simple trip to Hornsby and Hardin County and past observation of extra cold-hardiness would do) once and for all.

This sounds a lot like some of the various Chrysalidocarpus (Dypsis) species like baronii, lanceloata and onilahensis.

Also, I recall seeing Sabal minors in Oklahoma northeast of Tulsa, as I roared eastward trying to outrun a tornado system.