The palmetto is way stronger than it looks. 5 things you didn’t know about SC’s tree

It's practically impossible to separate South Carolina from its beloved palmetto trees.

The trees, with their green fronds and tough trunks, are staples of the state's landscape. The palmetto is the state tree of both South Carolina and Florida — but only South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State.

Here are five surprising facts about South Carolina's palmetto trees:

• In the summertime, palmetto trees grow five-foot long creamy white flower stalks and small green and black fruits. Squirrels, raccoons and other critters enjoying eating these fruits as a summertime snack.
• The palmetto tree has multiple names, including the Sabal palmetto and the considerably less glamorous "cabbage palm."
• Palmettos usually grow to 40 or 50 feet, but they are capable of reaching an impressive 90 feet.
• The trunk of the palmetto tree is made of a tough, fibrous material that keeps the tree sturdy. The trunks can either grow stiff and straight or curved, but either way, they're too strong for a hurricane to knock them over.
• The palmetto tree is on South Carolina's state flag, and that design has a story worth telling. The story goes back to the Revolutionary War, when British troops attacked the Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island in 1776. The fort was made out of palmetto logs and sand, and stories attribute those hardy palmetto logs for absorbing the British cannonballs — even though the fort was still incomplete. During the war, Colonel William Moultrie designed a signal flag with a white crescent and a deep blue background to match his troops' uniforms. The palmetto tree was added to the flag in 1860, and the state's General Assembly accepted the new design as the official state flag not long after.

Kasia Kovacs: 843-706-8139, @kasiakovacs

This story was originally published February 3, 2018 at 3:46 PM with the headline "The palmetto is way stronger than it looks. 5 things you didn’t know about SC’s tree."