The December newsletter traditionally features palm eye candy from the past year. Cindy Adair’s first photo of Calyptrocalyx, below, naturally pairs with this reflection by W. S. Merwin: “Before breakfast, as usual, I take tea leaves (yellow buds from the highlands of western China, the successors of yesterday’s Huang Ya from Mengding Mountain) out to a young palm, a Calyptrocalyx elegans, on the slope … The moment I look out on it I feel happy, and that wordless recognition, clear as the day, is with me as it is there, mornings, on the walk down to the slope, among the young palms” (from Gardening in the Dark, 2010).