| Field notes | Stem solitary, massive, green, at least 25 m long, 7.5 cm diameter without sheaths, but much narrower at the base, ca 3.5 cm diameter. Sheaths gray, with few spines below the petioles; pinnae irregularly arranged in distant clusters of 2-3 pinnae, spreading in different planes. Leaves already dead and persisting in the canopy. Rachillae collected, these 80 cm long. A second species of Plectocomia, probably P. pierreana occurs with this, and has reddish, densely spiny sheaths and regularly arranged, pendulous pinnae |