| Field notes | Solitary tree. Stiltroots numerous (ca. 100), little branching, reaching 3.5 m, 3-4.5 cm in diam., black, smooth but covered with brown, globose lenticels. Stem 1850 cm long, 17 cm (basally) and 17 cm (apically) wide, distance between leafscars 31 cm (basally) to 10-14 cm (apically), smooth, densely covered with epiphytes and lichens. Leaves 5, spreading in a horizontal plane; leafbase 135 x 60 cm (basally), shealthing for the first 70 cm thus forming a crownshaft, margins apically attenuated into two lists meeting in a v, woody but soft, smooth, brownish lilac; petiole 33 x 7 cm, rounded below, a deep furrow above, green with a ferruginous felt; rachis 410 cm long, green with a ferruginous felt, blade (410 x 195)cm, narrowly elliptic; pinnae 2 x 20, inserted reduplicately at different angles and in groups, lightly pliated, (81 x 18)cm basally, (125 x 32)cm (in the middle), darkgreen above, lightgreen below, major nerves often with a ferruginous tomentum. Inflorescences 2 (+ several buds), infrafoliar, the oldest 120 cm below the crownshaft; prophyll decidous; peduncular bracts ca. 14, decidous, the lowermost 155 cm long, 20 cm wide (basally) to 30 cm wide (in the middle part), spatuate, apically acuminate, acumen 4 mm, outside brownish felted, inside yellow basally to brown apically; peduncle 25 cm long, 8 cm wide, green with ferruginous feltation basally; rachis 24 cm, green; rachillae 3, evenly distributed along the rachis, the lower ones branched in two, 150-170 cm long and 1 cm wide basally, 155 cm long and 1 cm wide apically, yellow, the uppermost 10 cm without flowers; flowers yellow. Uses: Housebuilding material (madera, posts etc.). Palmito edible. NV: Pambil (Spanish); boun-chi (Cayapa). |
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