Palmyra palm

Toddy palms silhouetted above the pagodas of Bagan are the emblem of Burma’s dry zone; their sap makes palm sugar and wine.

A sturdy palm growing to 20–30 m, with a thick, straight trunk and a rounded crown of 25–40 stiff, fan-shaped leaves up to 3 m across. The plants are dioecious, and the females produce clusters of large, purplish-black fruits with jelly-like, edible seeds. Sweet sap is collected from tapped inflorescences; boiled down, it yields palm sugar, and fermented, palm wine. The leaves are woven into baskets and mats and used for thatching.

Significance in the country

The toddy palm is everywhere in Myanmar’s central dry zone, where climbers go up into the crowns every day to collect the sap – it is made into “htan nyat”, a sweet palm sugar eaten after meals, and the mildly alcoholic “htan ye”. Palms among the temples of Bagan are among the country’s most recognisable sights.

Where it grows

The dry zone along the middle Irrawaddy – around Bagan, Mandalay, Myingyan, Magway and Monywa.

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