| Field notes | Solitary on slope in terra firme forest. The base with many adventitious roots originating below the "bark" and widening this out to form a 10 cm high and 10 cm wide cone. Stem erect, 330 cm tall, 3.5 cm diam throughout; internodes 5 cm (basally) to 2 cm (apically) long, brown with flat, black spines up to 5 cm long, pointing outwards and downwards. Leaves 10, spreading; sheath of basal leaf erect, 21 cm long, encircling the stem for c. 2 cm, narrowing to 1.5 cm, inside smooth, brown, outside green, bulging at base with black, flat spines up to 5 cm long; sheath of uppermost leaf 18 cm long, completely encircling the leaf-bud inside and continued into a 15 cm long tubular extension that is split up into a fibrous covering in the middle leaves; petiole bending away from the stem, 35 cm long, 1.5 cm wide at base, 1 cm wide below blade, rounded but slightly flattened above the base. Blade pinnate, 140 cm long, 55 cm wide, rachis 100 cm long, rounded below, triangular above, covered with a brown tomentum and with scattered black spines up to 5 cm long along the underside; pinnae 13 per side inserted in pairs of 2 at irregular intervals on each side, but the pairs not opposite; each pinnae wedge-shaped, up to 28 cm long, 18 cm wide at the top, and irregularly cut off at the apical margin, above glossy green, plicate, below glaucous with yellow midrib and a marginal band of a fine brown tomentum and one black spine up to 4 cm long inserted on the midrib 1-5 cm from the base. Inflorescence bud interfoliar; prophyll inserted at the base, linear, 26 cm long, 2 cm wide, bicarinate, splitting up apically into a fibrous covering, cream-coloured at the base, light brown at the top; peduncular bract inserted 2 cm from the base, linear, apically acute, 65 cm long, 1.3 cm wide, round in cross-section, cream-coloured at the base, light brown on upper part. Inflorescence interfoliar; peduncle 80 cm long, 8 mm wide, rounded but slightly dorsiventrally flattened, cream-coloured at base covered with increasingly more dense fine brown tomentum upwards; prophyll persistent inserted at the base, linear, 21 cm long, 2 cm wide, bicarinate, cream-coloured at the base, brown upwards, splitting into fibres at top; peduncular bract inserted 27 cm from base, persistent, 47 cm long, thin, splitting into longitudinal fibres; rachis 20 cm long; rachilla 15 cm (basally) to 4 cm (apically) long, with dense cover of flowers on abaxial side, green and smooth adaxially. |
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