Sorry about straying off topic again, but at least it's related to a sort of a hoax. :-)

Many of the "palm trees" in Cornwall give us Kiwis a bit of a chuckle, because they are actually New Zealand cabbage trees (Cordyline Australis, Cordyline pumilio, Cordyline indivisa, Cordyline fruticosa and Cordyline banksii), which can grow up to 12m (40ft) high and look a bit like a palm trees, but are not palms at all. The cabbage trees were taken back to Cornwall around the mid-1800s by my Treseder relations who, being gardeners in the Truro area, came out this way to Australia and New Zealand to collect new specimens. My late mother's maiden name was Treseder.

See also Wikipedia for more illustrations and descriptions of the cabbage tree:
The overall visual effect is said by many to create a view reminiscent of a palm tree (it is occasionally even mis-named "Cornish palm", "Torbay palm" or "Manx palm" in the British Isles due to its extensive use within Torbay and as the official symbol of that area under its alternative identity, the English Riviera).