[f. CABBAGE sb.1 1, 2.]
1. A name given to several palm trees, whose central unexpanded mass of leaves or terminal bud is eaten like the head of a cabbage; esp.
a. The West Indian tree, Areca or Oreodoxa oleracea, also called Cabbage-palm and Palmetto Royal, growing to a height of 150 or 200 feet.
b. Chamærops Palmetto of the Southern U.S.
c. Euterpe oleracea of Brazil and ? W. Indies.
d. Livistona inermis of Northern Australia.
e. Corypha australis of Australia, the leaves of which are made into baskets, hats, etc.
1725. Sloane, Jamaica, II. 110. This is most Evident in the Top of that called the Cabbage-Tree.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica (1789), 342. This [the Barbadoes Cabbage Tree] is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen, and may be very lawfully esteemed the queen of the woods.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 123. We … saw many aneebong or cabbage trees growing on the island.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 677. (S. Carolina) The palmetto or cabbage tree, the utility of which, in the construction of forts was experienced during the late war.
2. Other trees and plants, so called for various trivial reasons, as the Cabbage-bark Tree, Andira inermis of the West Indies; a palm-like liliaceous plant of New Zealand, Cordyline indivisa, bearing a head of narrow leaves. Bastard or Black C. T., Andira inermis (see above);—of St. Helena: Melanodendron integrifolium;—of South America: the leguminous genus Geoffroya. Canary Island C. T., Cacolia kleinia nervifolia, a composite plant. Small Umbelled C. T., Commidendron spurium. (Miller, Plant Names, 1884.)
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. xxiii. 164. The black-cabbage tree, the wood of which … is in high estimation among carpenters and joiners.
1884. Gordon-Cumming, in Century Mag., XXVII. 920/2. The settlers with strange perversity have dubbed this the cabbage-tree, though its cluster of handsome long leaves, crowning a tall stem, is nowise suggestive of that familiar vegetable.
3. attrib., as in cabbage-tree hat (short, cabbage-tree); cabbage-tree worm, a fat grub found in the decaying cabbage tree eaten in Guiana.
1880. A. C. Grant, in Blackw. Mag., Feb., 167/2. They … pull the chin-straps of their cabbage-tree hats down. Ibid., 171/1. He gathered up the reins in his left hand, and raising his cabbage-tree, allowed the chin-strap to drop to its place.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. 23. Groe-groe, or cabbage-tree worms, as they are called in Surinam…. In taste they partake of all the spices of India … these worms are produced in all the palm-trees, when beginning to rot.
