The story
As you climb back past these giants, look at the shaggy brown skirts hanging down their trunks. Those are the old dead fronds, and left in peace a fan palm keeps every one — building a thatch that can drape the whole trunk to the ground. That skirt is a world of its own: hooded orioles nest in it, little bats roost in it, lizards and insects shelter in it, and it wraps the tree against both cold and fire. A wild fan palm in full skirt is one of the desert's great apartment houses. Keep stepping up — you're doing fine.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0
