'Drought-tolerant'' is a characteristic high on every gardener's plant list these days since water restrictions are about to become permanent.

But this year's rainy season has outdone itself after a two-year drought, so the question becomes: How can drought-tolerant cope with gully washer?

It's a tricky question when it comes to palms. Highly drought-tolerant palms may come from the desert and not take to South Florida's sometimes soggy conditions.

''Rain is not something many drought-tolerant palms are used to, and that can become a problem for them in our area,'' says Paul Craft, coauthor of An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms and president of the International Palm Society. A horticultural consultant in Palm Beach County, Craft has grown palms and managed nurseries for many years and is working on a book about the palms of Cuba.

While the tall date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, is popular in South Florida, ''it looks so much better in California or Arizona, where the palm maintains much fuller leaf crowns and healthier leaves,'' he says.

In South Florida, the date palms' fronds are attacked by leaf-spotting fungi -- ''often with a vengeance,'' he says. Its relative, the beefy Canary Island date palm, Phoenix canariensis, becomes so stressed in too much rain that it releases pheromones that attract weevils, Craft says.

(Christie Jones, curator of palms and cycads at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, disagrees and says the Canary Island date does well once it's in the ground.)

South Florida's high nighttime temperatures are a problem for another group of drought-tolerant palms, including the Chinese windmill palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, and the pindo or jelly palm, Butia capitata. These palms do well in Orlando, but not Miami.

The obvious solution, Craft says, is Florida native palms, but they aren't the only answer.

Most of the recommended palms will be available at the palm sale this weekend at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (see box).

There are a dozen palms native to Florida, but, Craft says, ''they are not used nearly enough.'' He particularly recommends the buccaneer palm, Pseudophoenix sargentii; thatch palm, Thrinax radiata; Key thatch palm, Leucothrinax morrisii; silver thatch, Coccothrinax argentata and saw palmetto, Serenoa repens.

Jones says the ''big four genera for South Florida'' include Coccothrinax, Thrinax, Copernicia and Sabal -- ''basically, all the Caribbean palms, with few exceptions.'' One of those exceptions is from southeastern Brazil. It is Allagoptera arenaria, the seashore palm, a shrub-like plant that both Jones and Craft recommend.

Harvey Bernstein, whose Miami garden is a no-water oasis populated with many succulents, also includes native palms among those he recommends, but tops his list with Nannorrhops ritchiana, which he calls ''bulletproof.'' From Afghanistan and Pakistan, this palm is from dry, mountainous areas. Bernstein says it can take ``dry or moist in full sun, and any amount of cold. It's salt-tolerant, too.''

The University of Florida's Cooperative Extension Service has a list of low-maintenance landscape plants for South Florida that includes more than 40 palms (including the dates that Craft says are less desirable). Seven of the state's natives made the list.

Adrian Hunsberger, urban horticulture agent with the Extension Service, says, ``The vast majority of palms are drought-tolerant, except the Everglades palm [Acoelorraphe wrightii]. It should be planted near water.''

Asked to recommend drought-tolerant palms, Broward horticulture agent John Pipoly said he wouldn't plant palms now because a new disease -- Texas phoenix palm decline -- is in Florida.

But Monica Elliott, a research scientist studying the disease, said she sees no reason to avoid palms. The new disease, which resembles lethal yellowing, is not yet in Southeast Florida, and there's always some threat to any plant.

Here are caveats about drought-tolerant palms: Drought tolerance comes with age. Juvenile palms and those just transplanted require regular watering to sink their roots well into the soil and become established. In addition, they need excellent drainage. A European fan palm, for example, may do best when grown on a slight mound so it won't sit in water.

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