Meet the author: Env. Conservancy of North Port

Local natural historian, environmental educator, activist (and now author) Jono Miller, will join us to talk about The Palmetto Book, read a few passages, and field your questions about Florida’s state tree.

Jono Miller has worked for half a century to understand and protect the wild places in Southwest Florida, including North Port.  He first studied North Port’s palm hammocks in the 1980s. The more Jono learned about cabbage palms, the more unanswered questions he discovered. That led to his master’s thesis in the Florida Studies Program at USF, St. Pete. Ten years later, after traveling around the coastal southeast investigating this common, but poorly understood palm, he published The Palmetto Book: Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm. Two dozen chapters explore both the natural and cultural history of this distinctive Florida native. The book was recently chosen for the Florida Master Gardener Volunteer book club and has gained acclaim for it’s general audience, fact-filled readability.