| Field notes | A solitary tree. Base with a 60 cm high and 60 cm wide clump of adventitious roots; each root about half a centimeter thick and black. The trunk 16 meters high, 26 cm in diam at the base, 23 cm in diam below the crown; internodes 18 cm long near the base, only 1 cm long below the crown; nodes 1-4 cm wide; internodes smooth, brown, in some places with black, flat spines up to 11 cm long that point downwards. Crown of about 9 leaves, dehiscing right at the base leaving a "clean" trunk; petiole 3 m long, completely encircling the trunk at the base, but not forming a sheath, adaxial side slightly channeled, smooth, brown, glossy, abaxial side green, with many spines which are brown with a black base, flattened and pointing upwards, up to 9 cm long; blade 480 x 260 cm with about 150 pinnae on each, the pinnae diverging from the rachis in different directions making the blade somewhat 3-dimensional and fussy-looking; the rachis with rounded abaxial side and inverted v-shaped on the adaxial side. Inflorescences three, in different stages of development; the most basal and oldest one inserted in the axil of the most basal leaf, erect, 275 cm long, peduncle oval in cross-section, 140 cm long; rachis oval in cross-section 135 cm long, with about 150 sidebranches of which the longest is about 50 cm long, all flowers and fruits have fallen of the branches; the basal sheath of the inflorescence inserted at the very base of the peduncle, 95 cm long, dorsiventrally flattened with sharp lateral edges, the outer surface completely covered with fine brown spines of which the longest is up to 2 cm long, the upper sheath (spathe) not present and only indicated by a scar on thepeduncle 125 cm from the base. The 2nd inflorescence inserted in the axil of the next to basal leaf, erect, 285 cm long, with a 90 cm long basal sheath, and a 200 cm long upper spathe, inserted 85 cm from the base of the peduncle, round, and completely enclosing the flowering parts, the outside completely covered with small brown spines; rachis and branches cream colored, rachis oval in cross-section 160 cm long ca with 150 side branches, the longest of these 50 cm long, sidebranches with the apical 25 cm covered with maure unopened male flowers, the basal 25 cm with a single male flower and one female flower in the middle (12 cm from base). The 3rd inflorescence hidden in the center of the crown, 240 cm long, 10 cm wide, completely enclosed in the spiny, pointed bract. Uses: Not known by the local settlers. |
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