Just when I thought I must have seen every type of palm tree known to man, what should appear, but a Ponytail Palm?
I decided to check with Professor Google, and apparently, there are over 2600 species of palm trees, so no, I’ve definitely not seen them all, nor will I live long enough to do so.
Not really, Amanda because I know from where we winter here in South Texas, that there are many Palm Tree varieties and it’s very dry here. I think it’s more because when I think about Australian trees, what comes to mind are things like Eucalyptus. In elementary school, we sang a song “Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree”. I remember the teacher explaining that a gum tree’s real name was eucalyptus and that they grew in Australia. 😊
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Oh, I know that song well, Terry. All Aussie pre-schoolers know that song! I think it is great that you know it and learnt it too. And you are right, we have heaps of Eucalypts. Four families with many different species. I rather like the Snow gums with their white trunks and shedding bark. There are Eucalypts that grow in the rainforest next to the palms too. I heard that they were planting them in Africa for firewood as they have the tendency to re-shoot (coppice) once cut. And then there are the widow-makers – the big branches that fall down occasionally and kill people. Just another thing in Australia that is dangerous! Haha.
Your comment about just one more thing in Australia that can kill you, made me laugh, Amanda. One of my all-time fave tourism books was “In a Sunburned Country” by Bill Bryson. It’s been many years since I read it, but I do recall a chapter dedicated to all of the things in Australia that will kill you.
I’ve read all of Bill Bryson’s books and those two weren’t familiar,
Amanda, so I looked them up. Bill Bryson didn’t write them. The author of those books was Bryce Courtenay. I can see how the similarity in the name could have led you there.
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Radically Retired 
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