The oil palm tree is a tropical plant which commonly grows in warm climates at altitudes of less than 1,600 feet above sea level. There is one species, the Noli or Elaeis oleifera (H.B.K) Cortes which is native of America; another species is Elaeis guineensis Jacq. which originates from the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa (hence its scientific name) and better known as the African oil palm.

This tree produces one of the most popular edible oils in the world – a versatile oil of superb nutritional value. It is the most prolific of all oil plants and in commercial terms the one which offers major prospects of development.

Oil palm is normally monoic; in other words, it has both male and female flowers on the same tree. It produces thousands of fruits, in compact bunches whose weight varies between 10 and 40 kilograms. Each fruit is almost spherical, ovoid or elongated in shape. Generally the fruit is dark purple, almost black before it ripens and orange red when ripe.

Some 40 leaves crown the stately column of the oil palm and as it reaches middle age its leaves spread out - between 10 and 25 feet in length – and almost parallel to the ground. Each leaf has short thorns at its base and about 250 leaflets in an irregular pattern on both sides of the petiole. Thus, these leaflets are not continuous like the tines of a feather. In fact, the irregular appearance of the frond is one of the characteristic features of this species.

The fruit has a single seed – the palm kernel – protected by a wooden endocarp or shell, surrounded by a fleshy mesocarp or pulp. This fruit produces two types of oil: one extracted from the pulp (palm oil) and the other from the kernel (palm kernel oil).

Its stem stands straight in the form of an inverted cone. In the wild it may grow to heights of one hundred feet and more. The stems of young and adult plants are wrapped in leaves which give them a rather rough appearance. The older trees have smooth stems apart from the scars left by the leaves which have withered and fallen off.

Primary roots grow downwards from the base of the palm and radiate outwards in a more or less horizontal direction close to the surface of the ground. Their length and depth depend on the type of soil.