| Field notes | Caespitose, 13.5 m tall tree with 6 individual stems, originating in one clump. The base without visible adventitious roots, but the whole clump of trees stands on a 2 m wide and 50 cm high mound of roots covered by litter. Trunk 7.3 m tall, 12 cm DBH, dark brown, smooth or longitudinally fissured basally, greyish green higher up, visible internodes 35 cm long. Crown of 8 leaves standing quite upright; sheath 140 cm long, closed only in its lower one quarter, but encircling the top of the trunk, so it looks like a crown shaft, outer surface of sheath smooth, glossy and olive green, the margins split up into a net in its upper one third, with a 5-15 cm long ligula where it joins the petiole; petiole 50 cm long, cross section rounded abaxially, grooved adaxially; leaf-blade 420 x 170 cm with 2 x 66 pinnae, somewhat (but only inconspicuously so) unevenly inserted on the rachis; rachis rounded below, grooved above in its lower half, V-shaped in its upper half, in young leaves covered by farinose brown indument. Inflorescence inserted 2 internodes below the leaves, pointing upwards at an angle of 45° and with the branches hanging down, giving it the appearance of a horse tail; prophyll in unripe inflorescence extracted from within a leaf-sheath, 45 cm long, 12 cm wide, splitting up into two 20 cm long lateral horns, deciduous as soon as inflorescence breaks out, inserted close to the base of the peduncle; bract (only one) inserted 6 cm from peduncle base, 60 cm long, 7 cm wide, with a 10 cm long solid tip, smooth reddish brown, deciduous when inflorescence emerges; peduncle 12 cm long, 4 cm wide, farinose, red brown; rachis 10 cm long, 3 cm wide at base, gradually tapering to the apex; inflorescence branches hanging down from the lower surface of the rachis, 55 cm long, 80 in number, the basal 5-8 cm of the branch without flowers, the middle c. 40-45 cm swollen with numerous flowers, the apical 5-8 cm thin with staminate flowers only. On top of ridge on terra firme. Duplicates: AAU, K, QCA, QCNE. |
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