Swamp cabbage's name is misleading: The ingredient actually comes from a palm tree. Specifically, the sabal palm (Sabal ...

Behold! The common sabal palm tree. Also known as the cabbage palm or swamp cabbage, the tree’s ubiquity in the South, especially in the Southern Florida landscape, makes it go almost unnoticed.

Swamp cabbage is not cabbage, and it is not harvested in swamp. It’s a delicate heart of a sturdy native palm, and, while the palms are easy to find, experts in cooking it are not. One expert is ...

But harvesting this "swamp cabbage" (an arduous process, incidentally) kills the tree. Better to purchase cans of commercially grown hearts of palm from the peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), imported ...

A typical cabbage palm costs about $120. One found on a field soon to be cleared for an industrial park and hotel, however, could be worth as much as $20,000, according to one local tree company.