my mother says calm to rhyme with pam..

as for palm oil.. well its not pure refined oil as we are more used to.. (corn oil or vegetable oil)

its more like butter (which is easily 'clarified" and can yeild a pure oil, but most westerns like the taste and characteristic of the 'milk solids' in butter, and rarely use clarified butter.

coconut cream is similar--its not pure oil either, but has coconut meat (suspended solids) in it..
coconut oil is sweet. but red palm oil is sharp (think of the succulent taste of a tomato.. or citrus fruit)

(you can get a similar taste to red palm oil by combining tomato paste and coconut oil.--sounds weird, taste good as gravy (with peanut butter for ground nut stew))

meanwhile getting back to hand/palm
there is also the hosta plant, who's latin name has a palm root--only with (edit, thanks to dr bill,) with a twist.. a metathesis, it's plantian.. (like plantain weeds)
(more editing..)
in checking the metathesis is an old one! these are from the american heritage dictionary, (with links too)
{green]Palm:
1. Any of various chiefly tropical evergreen trees, shrubs, or woody vines of the family Palmae (or Arecaceae), characteristically having unbranched trunks with a crown of large pinnate or palmate leaves having conspicuous parallel venation. 2. A leaf of a palm tree, carried as an emblem of victory, success, or joy. 3. Triumph; victory. 4. A small metallic representation of a palm leaf added to a military decoration that has been awarded more than one time.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old English and from Old French palme, both from Latin palma, palm of the hand, palm tree (from the shape of the tree's fronds). See pel-2 in Appendix I.
to see the pel-2 info..
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE391.html

(root word) Flat; to spread. Oldest form *pel2-; variant *ple2-, colored to *pla2-, contracted to *pl-.

Derivatives include field, planet, plasma, plastic, and polka.
1. Suffixed form *pel()-tu-. field, from Old English feld, open field, from Germanic *felthuz, flat land. 2. Suffixed form *pel()-t-es- (by-form of *pel()-tu-). a. feldspar, from Old High German feld, field; b. veldt, from Middle Dutch veld, velt, field. Both a and b from Germanic *feltha-, flat land. 3. Variant form *pl-. a. Suffixed form *pl-ru-. floor, from Old English flr, floor, from Germanic *flruz, floor; b. suffixed form *pl-no-. llano, piano2, plain, planarian, plane1, plane2, plane3, planish, plano-, planula; esplanade, explain, pianoforte, from Latin plnus, flat, level, even, plain, clear. 4. Suffixed zero-grade form *p-m-. palm1, palm2, palmary, from Latin palma (< *palama), palm of the hand. 5. Possibly extended variant form *plan-. a. planet; aplanatic, from Greek plansthai, to wander (< “to spread out”); b. perhaps Germanic *flan-. flâneur, from French flâner, to walk the streets idly, from a source akin to Old Norse flana, to wander aimlessly. 6. Suffixed zero-grade form *pl-dh-. –plasia, plasma, –plast, plaster, plastic, plastid, –plasty; dysplasia, metaplasm, toxoplasma, from Greek plassein (< *plath-yein), to mold, “spread out.” 7. O-grade form *pol-. a. polynya, from Russian poly, open; b. Polack, polka, from Slavic polje, broad flat land, field. (Pokorny pel- 805.) See also extensions plk-1 and plat-.


see how the Pl switches at times to pel (or PL(vowel sound) to P(vowel sound) L sound..

the PLANTAR of plantar warts (on the soles of your feet) is related to the PALM of the palm of your hand!--and to the palm tree..

my other obsession