I remember someone at some point found this stand near me on Google maps. This is the Dying town of Hornsby Tennessee located in Hardeman County on the Border of McNairy County. It's very mysterious with mature sabal minor everywhere along the swampy part of the town. I'm willing to bet if there's this many Naturalized sabal minor in the town they most likely have spread down stream into the Hatchie River flood plain. I have no idea if these are the result of someone planting sabal minor a long time ago or if they have always been present in this location. There's a few scattered around that look ancient. Most of the houses in this town where these palms are growing look like they were built before utilities were an option, and they're so old that nature is finally just swallowing them.

I've done some research on this and if I recall right, I think someone online said that someone went on a trip down south so many decades ago (maybe the 1960's) maybe to Florida or somewhere like that and brought some sabal minor back with them and then they have spread and naturalized all over that little Tennessee town since then. So they are most likely naturalized in this area rather than native but it is still very impressive. They certainly seem to thrive there. There are a few other areas where sabal minor has naturalized in Tennessee. One area I know of in zone 7b Tennessee is where the owner of a property planted some sabal minor in the 1960's and there are now dozens of them all over his property and some even across the road by a fence. I'm guessing birds carried the seeds and perched on the fence and dropped them there. But the thing about sabal minor is it may produce many seeds but most of the seedlings usually are going to end up in one small area even over the span of decades. I'm guessing this is due to their seeds being relatively heavy and many of them probably just dropping right by the parent plant. They seem to expand there native range extremely slowly. Birds seem to really like sabal minor seeds but they seem to digest them very quickly and drop them very quickly a short distance away from the parent plants. Since the last ice age, it has taken them a very long time just to get up to their known native range. Another problem is humans keep destroying the environment so there is less and less favorable habitat for sabal minor to expand into as time goes on. So since the 1960's, that area that I was talking about in Tennessee, the sabal minor reproduced and spread a lot but only in a relatively small area, only reaching to barely across the road by a fence. I'm guessing Hornsby, Tennessee is zone 8a? The area I am talking about is in zone 7b. Back in the 1960's, I'm not sure what the cold hardiness zone for each place was. It's very interesting to think of what kinds of winters all these sabal minor in Tennessee have endured over all these decades. The problem is sabal minor just spreads so slowly northward or in any direction (unless I'm guessing if water is involved like a creek or something to help move seeds). If sabal minor spread faster, I'm sure they would probably already be proven native in Tennessee and all over most of Tennessee. Sabal minor don't have feet like animals and people do and cannot simply walk to where they want.

43 minutes ago, PalmTreesAreCoolYes said:

I've done some research on this and if I recall right, I think someone online said that someone went on a trip down south so many decades ago (maybe the 1960's) maybe to Florida or somewhere like that and brought some sabal minor back with them and then they have spread and naturalized all over that little Tennessee town since then. So they are most likely naturalized in this area rather than native but it is still very impressive. They certainly seem to thrive there. There are a few other areas where sabal minor has naturalized in Tennessee. One area I know of in zone 7b Tennessee is where the owner of a property planted some sabal minor in the 1960's and there are now dozens of them all over his property and some even across the road by a fence. I'm guessing birds carried the seeds and perched on the fence and dropped them there. But the thing about sabal minor is it may produce many seeds but most of the seedlings usually are going to end up in one small area even over the span of decades. I'm guessing this is due to their seeds being relatively heavy and many of them probably just dropping right by the parent plant. They seem to expand there native range extremely slowly. Birds seem to really like sabal minor seeds but they seem to digest them very quickly and drop them very quickly a short distance away from the parent plants. Since the last ice age, it has taken them a very long time just to get up to their known native range. Another problem is humans keep destroying the environment so there is less and less favorable habitat for sabal minor to expand into as time goes on. So since the 1960's, that area that I was talking about in Tennessee, the sabal minor reproduced and spread a lot but only in a relatively small area, only reaching to barely across the road by a fence. The ones you show in Hornsby Tennessee seem bigger though. I'm guessing that is a zone 8a. The area I am talking about is a zone 7b. Back in the 1960's, I'm not sure what the cold hardiness zone for each place was. It's very interesting to think of what kinds of winters all these sabal minor in Tennessee have endured over all these decades. The problem is sabal minor just spreads so slowly northward or in any direction (unless I'm guessing if water is involved like a creek or something to help move seeds). If sabal minor spread faster, I'm sure they would probably already be proven native in Tennessee and all over most of Tennessee. Sabal minor don't have feet like animals and people do and cannot simply walk to where they wa

43 minutes ago, PalmTreesAreCoolYes said:

I've done some research on this and if I recall right, I think someone online said that someone went on a trip down south so many decades ago (maybe the 1960's) maybe to Florida or somewhere like that and brought some sabal minor back with them and then they have spread and naturalized all over that little Tennessee town since then. So they are most likely naturalized in this area rather than native but it is still very impressive. They certainly seem to thrive there. There are a few other areas where sabal minor has naturalized in Tennessee. One area I know of in zone 7b Tennessee is where the owner of a property planted some sabal minor in the 1960's and there are now dozens of them all over his property and some even across the road by a fence. I'm guessing birds carried the seeds and perched on the fence and dropped them there. But the thing about sabal minor is it may produce many seeds but most of the seedlings usually are going to end up in one small area even over the span of decades. I'm guessing this is due to their seeds being relatively heavy and many of them probably just dropping right by the parent plant. They seem to expand there native range extremely slowly. Birds seem to really like sabal minor seeds but they seem to digest them very quickly and drop them very quickly a short distance away from the parent plants. Since the last ice age, it has taken them a very long time just to get up to their known native range. Another problem is humans keep destroying the environment so there is less and less favorable habitat for sabal minor to expand into as time goes on. So since the 1960's, that area that I was talking about in Tennessee, the sabal minor reproduced and spread a lot but only in a relatively small area, only reaching to barely across the road by a fence. The ones you show in Hornsby Tennessee seem bigger though. I'm guessing that is a zone 8a. The area I am talking about is a zone 7b. Back in the 1960's, I'm not sure what the cold hardiness zone for each place was. It's very interesting to think of what kinds of winters all these sabal minor in Tennessee have endured over all these decades. The problem is sabal minor just spreads so slowly northward or in any direction (unless I'm guessing if water is involved like a creek or something to help move seeds). If sabal minor spread faster, I'm sure they would probably already be proven native in Tennessee and all over most of Tennessee. Sabal minor don't have feet like animals and people do and cannot simply walk to where they want.

I would definitely say this area is 8a, as a matter of fact it's safe to assume all of the counties including the one i live in 15 minutes to the East are 8a. Something id like to point out here is this ridiculous beast. This is a cropped image so the quality is kinda bad. But is it just me or is that fullest, most Globular, stickless lollipop, of a sabal minor ever? this is one of the larger ones in Hornsby. I don't think I've ever seen a sabal minor anywhere that looked like that.