INTRODUCTIONClose your eyes and imagine the LA landscape. You most likely imagined at least one palm tree or several in a row. The palm tree has become a symbol of LA and portrays the image of LA as a desert oasis. However, despite the ubiquity of the palm trees in LA, many of the varieties are not native to the city. Many of the palm trees have only been present in LA for about the past one hundred years. The palm trees were planted in LA, not for their usefulness (they provide little fruit and shade), but for their symbolism of paradise. In the 19th century, the LA basin area was covered in shady pepper trees planted by Spanish missionaries. Unlike palms, the trees provided large amounts of shade but fell out of style into the 20th century (Carlson). To Europeans, the palm trees symbolized warmer climates, exotic lands, and tropical regions. Thus, when Los Angeles began to establish itself as an exotic location in the early 20th century, city planners began to plant rows of palm trees – rather than pepper trees – along streets and boulevards to conjure up the image of LA as a paradise location (Masters). As time passed, the fashion of 20th-century Hollywood shifted away from an exotic Orientalist facade, and narratives about palm trees followed suit. Since the palm trees were planted largely for trendy ornamental purposes, there is little desire to replant them as they grow old and die. The palm trees outside of their natural habitats are dying earlier than expected, and have been weakened in population due to the infestation of the red palm weevil: small beetles that prey on palm trees. City planners are choosing less and less to replace dying palm trees, and are opting for trees that require less water and offer more shade. In order to dive into the history of the palm in Los Angeles, we provide insight into where these plants came from in the first place.

Palm Oasis

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Continue storytelling with ArcGIS StoryMaps and keep your content. Request that Esri migrate your account to ArcGIS Online by May 31, 2025, and complete migration by June 30, 2025.

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To complete the migration of your StoryMaps.com account to ArcGIS Online, review and accept the Esri Master Agreement and Privacy Policy before June 30, 2025. For more information on migrating to ArcGIS Online, visit the <link>StoryMaps.com retirement page</link>.

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After one year, you will need to purchase an ArcGIS Online subscription to continue using ArcGIS StoryMaps. Check out the StoryMaps <link>retirement page</link> for more information on the ArcGIS Online subscription options.

ArcGIS <link>StoryMaps</link> is the professional version of StoryMaps and is available as part of <link2>ArcGIS Online</link2>. Both products share similar storytelling capabilities, so if you are familiar with StoryMaps, you'll feel right at home with ArcGIS StoryMaps. Visit the <link3>retirement page</link3> for a detailed comparison between StoryMaps and ArcGIS StoryMaps.

If you do not migrate your account to ArcGIS Online, you can save any content you would like to keep before the June 30, 2025, retirement date. The options for saving content include saving stories as a PDF and saving frames using a screen recording. 

Esri is retiring StoryMaps. On June 30, 2025, StoryMaps will go offline, and StoryMaps content will not be available to edit or view. For more information, please visit the <link>StoryMaps retirement page.</link>

Introducing ArcGIS StoryMaps and ArcGIS Online: <link>AGSM Introduction video</link>

You are invited to migrate your account and content to ArcGIS Online where you can continue storytelling with maps. With ArcGIS Online, you’ll get access to ArcGIS StoryMaps and the easy-to-use story builder you are familiar with, plus so much more!

If you migrate your account to ArcGIS Online, you will have access to your existing stories, collections, and themes via ArcGIS StoryMaps, as well as an array of additional ArcGIS capabilities. (Your frames will be migrated and accessible when support for frames is added to ArcGIS StoryMaps.)

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Both of these options include access to ArcGIS StoryMaps and the other ArcGIS Online apps and capabilities. Please note that there is a price difference between the two options that you will need to pay if you want to keep your account active when your free subscription expires. See the FAQs on the <link>StoryMaps.com retirement page</link> for more information about these subscription options.

Selecting Request migration below means that you are deciding to change your StoryMaps.com account to an ArcGIS Online subscription. During the free subscription, you will have access to your existing stories and collections via ArcGIS StoryMaps, as well as an array of additional capabilities offered by ArcGIS Online.

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