| Locality | Huanuco, region Pucallpa, western part of the “Sira mountains” and adjacent lowland; ca. 26 km S of Puerto Inca, next to the junction of the Rio Pachitea and Rio Yuapichis, biological field station “Panguana”;Primary lowland rainforest with some xeromorphic elements, partly low, partly disturbed by local agriculture and logging. Soils white sands or brown latosols with rocky outcrops |
| Field notes | Habit: palm of the understory and subcanopy, up to 15m but yet flowering at a height of 5-6m. Stem: Up to 12m lenght, +/- 20cm in diameter; unarmed (if not leafsheaths persisting): internodes c. 30cm long. Leaves: +/- 12 leaves; total lenght +/- 750cm; sheaths: +/- 180cm long, basally brown with brown hairs, distally green; almost surrounding the stem basally but then splitting into strong brown, hairy fibres, c. 130cm in touch with the stem, then curved; abaxially, exept the very basal part and especially mediane, with many black spines ([1]-10-20-[25] cm long), the parts closely attached to the stem with the biggest number and lenght; petiole +/- 130cm long, green, with many prominent black spines, (up to 7 cm); basally 3.5 cm, terminal 3cm in diameter; rachis +/- 400cm long, green, onits abaxial side armed with spines decreasing in size and number towards terminal but with single spines up to 25cm; +/- 90 pairs of pinnae, basally alternate but then opposite. Inflorescence/infructescence: single, infrafoliar, erect, branched to 1st order, monoeceous, protogynous; peduncle: +/- 170cm long, basally 50x40mm, distally (=rachis basally) 33x28mm in diameter; yellowish green with very light-brown indumentum, completely unarmed; bearing prophyll (+/- 115cm long, dark-brown with short, soft brown hairs, only mediane with some dark-brown spines, but always hidden by the enclosing leafsheath) and the persisting 1st peduncular bract (+/- 115cm long, brown, with strong brown hairs, only on its top some soft spines up to 3cm); rachis: +/- 60cm, whitish, bearing c. 700 rachillae with obe big (20x8mm) single female flower basally(some with 1-2 acompaniing male flowers), the distal part only with male flowers, these sunken in pits; the terminal part of rachis bears c. 50 more rachillae with male flowers only; flowers: female ones with light-green calyx and yellowish white petals, perianth an gynoeceum with soft spines, stigmas hyaline at anthesis; male flowers whitish; fruit: mature fruit80x30mm, pale-orange with dark brown short spines and persisting, brown perianth and with a apical stigmatic remain; mesocarp bright orange, endocarp woody |
This record