This lifeform is found on the islands of the Caribbean Ocean.

Cuba thatch palm (Coccothrinax crinita) is native to Cuba. The trunk of this palm is usually less than 30 feet tall.

Coccothrinax genus (thatch and silver palms) is native to the West Indies.  There are about 50 species in this genus.  Kartesz shows  two species, argentata and barbadensis, established in greater North America.  Since his greater North America includes both the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, this number may be subject to further verification.

Palmae (Palm Family) are found in the tropics worldwide. There are probably over 4,000 valid species in this family. There are only about twenty species native to the United States. However, many more species have been introduced as ornamentals, especially in southern Florida. The southeastern United States has several species of palmettos. Florida has the common coconut palm and a native species of Royal Palm.

Palms (Palmae Family to Arecaceae family) are found in the tropics worldwide. There are probably over 4,000 valid species in this family. There are only about twenty species native to the United States, but many more species have been introduced,  especially in southern Florida, as ornamentals. The islands around New Guinea, Celebes, the Southern Philippines and adjacent islands may yield many new species.

Order Princeps (Or Palmales) contains only one family-the  Palms.

Monocots are a large group of plants usually characterized by having leaves with parallel veins and a seed with a single shell. Most flowers are created with multiples of three. In  the older botany texts, the Monocots were considered more primitive than the Dicots. However, many recent authors have placed the Monocots as an offshoot of the primitive Dicots. Here they are placed before the Dicots.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.

Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.

Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species.  Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.

On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.