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Glite Dictionary
🌴 An edible palm ☠️ A poisonous tree 🌳 A tall NZ tree
cabbage tree

cabbage tree

9.3
An Australian palm tree whose young leaf buds are eaten
  • noun
  • Australian
translation icon : palma de repollo
  • Early settlers used the young leaves of the cabbage tree as a food source.

Examples

  • The cabbage tree is commonly found along Australia's eastern coast.

  • A grove of cabbage trees provided shade near the riverbank.

  • The cabbage tree grows tall in the Australian landscape.

  • Have you ever seen a cabbage tree in person?

  • Early settlers used the young leaves of the cabbage tree as a food source.

  • A grove of cabbage trees provided shade near the riverbank.

  • The cabbage tree is commonly found along Australia's eastern coast.

Synonyms

Livistona australis
vscabbage tree
  • Australian
9.9

An Australian palm tree with fan shaped leaves and edible young leaf buds

is the common English name rather than the scientific label
cabbage palm
vscabbage tree
  • US
6.1

A palm tree whose young leaf buds are eaten as a vegetable

is the name for that specific Australian species with edible young buds

Surface Forms

cabbage tree singular
cabbage trees plural

Morphology

cabbage + tree

As a noun compound, a B1 learner who knows 'cabbage' and 'tree' can transparently infer that this is a kind or type of tree related in some way to 'cabbage' (i.e. a tree named for or associated with cabbage-like features). However, the detailed botanical properties in the given definition (tropical habit, toxic/unpleasant-smelling bark, medicinal uses) are not predictable from the constituents, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Cabbage tree in Australia was named because its young leaf bud is soft and was eaten like cabbage by early settlers, so people called the palm a cabbage tree.