Livistona mariae, also known as the central Australian or red cabbage palm, is a species of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. It is found only in Australia with the best-known occurrence found in Palm Valley in Finke Gorge National Park, Northern Territory. There are more than 3,000 cabbage palms in Palm Valley, many of which are several hundred years old and form a lush oasis among the rugged rocks and gorges. This region is now largely dry Central Ranges xeric scrubland. The palms are not relics from a previous age when Central Australia was much wetter, as previously thought. Aboriginal legend recorded in 1894 by Carl Strehlow describes "gods from the north" bringing the seeds to Palm Valley, which accords with the more modern research. Common names Vernacular names which have been applied to this species include: cabbage palm, central Australian cabbage palm, and red cabbage palm. Taxonomy A species of Livistona, palm trees of the family Arecaceae found in the horn of Africa, eastern Asia and Australia. L. mariae was found by Ernest Giles on his first expedition to the arid interior of Australia. The species description was published by Ferdinand von Mueller in his Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae. Mueller referred to the taxon in an earlier work describing the Giles expedition, although at this time the name was published without a formal description. Mueller did not designate a holotype, but a lectotype was selected by Tony Rodd in his 1998 revision of the Australian members of the genus Livistona, from among the two specimen sheets at the Melbourne herbarium attributed to Giles. Based on morphology, Rodd provisionally considered the closely related taxa L. mariae and L. rigida to be conspecific, and thus subsumed L. rigida as a subspecies of L. mariae. Rodd also described a new third taxon from specimens collected by him in Western Australia, the subspecies occidentalis. He furthermore noted the partial misapplication of the name to L. alfredii by Mueller in the same work. Rodd's 1998 circumscription of the species is summarised as: Livistona mariae F.Muell. Livistona mariae subsp. mariae – synonymous with Mueller's description of the population at the 'Palm Grove Oasis'. Livistona mariae subsp. rigida (Becc.) Rodd – previously described as a species by Odoardo Beccari. Livistona mariae subsp. occidentalis Rodd In 2004 the authors preparing a treatment of Australian populations of the family Arecaceae for the Flora of Australia, published a note