Moorabool Street palm tree

I took one photo the other day in Moorabool Street and mucked about with the photo.

from w
the Geelong City landscape designers opted for tropical palm trees for Moorabool Street and the trees do look odd in our southern temperate clime city, but somehow they did survive and we are getting used to them. They are a kind of fan palm, perhaps Californian Cotton Palm, but I'll need to ask someone about that. They are similar to the Fiji fan palm but the trunk is rougher. The Fiji tree is called masei in Labasa and it's a special tree of Mali Island. Even the string band singers there are called Vua ni Masei. I painted the little picture here when staying in Namadi Heights, Suva. The trees are in the garden of a doctor and she said they are straggly and why should I bother to draw them! There is a Fiji fan palm tree in the Geelong Botanical Gardens hothouse. The botanical name is Pritchardia Pacifica I think.