| Field notes | Solitary tree, 17 m tall. The base with an inverted, 60 cm high and 80 cm wide cone of adventitious roots, each root with longitudinal rows of prickly spines and shallow furrows. Trunk 12 m tall, 14 cm DBH, smooth, brown with a grey crust of lichens, leaf-scars separated by 15 cm long internodes. The crown of 6 spreading leaves; crown-shaft 120 cm long, swollen at the base, smooth, light green; petiole 30 cm, furrowed above, rounded below, without mucos at its base (cf. W. quinaria from coastal Ecuador); leaf-blade 280 x 180 cm, with 2 x 34 pinnae, inserted in one plane, young leaves brown velutinous. Inflorescence inserted below the leaves, the upper two nodes with 5-6 immature inflorescences each, the 3rd and 4th node with one developed inflorescence each and scars from several aborted ones; prophyll cylindrical, green, glabrous, c. 5 cm long; bracts 5, increasing in size from 5 to 25 cm long and in shape from cylindrical to clavate, and from glabrous to hairy on outside; peduncle in mature infructescence, 20 x 2-3 cm, green or light yellow; rachis very short, less than 5 cm, not visible without dissection of infructescence; infructescence branches 4, originating densely on the short rachis; fruits aggregated into four 20 cm long and 7 cm wide sausage-like structures. Duplicates: AAU, K, NY, QCA, QCNE. |
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