| Field notes | Solitary. Base slightly swollen with a few adventitious roots at nodes, roots light brown ca. 1 cm thick. Stem 6 m high, 22 cm diam. at base, internodes 20 cm long, fiercely spined, spines black flattened to 16 cm long, nodes ca. 2 cm wide, smooth. Leaves 11, erect; sheath ca. 1 m long, intensely spiney below, rounded below; petiole 161 cm rounded and spiney below, spines of two types, one is light brown and flattened up to 14 cm long, the other in bundles, brown flat and up to 4 cm long. Rachis ca. 4 m long rounded below with same type of spines as petiole, channeled above. Pinnae ca. 105 per side, inserted in groups of 2 - 4 along the rachis and diverging in different directions; basal pinna 130 x 9 cm, middle pinna 134 x 6 cm, apical pinna 72 x 5 cm, all pinnae dark green glossy above, whitish silvery below. Infructescence infrafoliar, pendulous; peduncle 200 cm long, dorsoventrally compressed, 5 cm wide, green with whitish waxy tomentum, spiney, spines to 4 cm long, mostly on the adaxial side on the base; rachis with very few spines, 75 cm long; fruits forming a dense clump 75 x 20 cm, rachis with same tomentum as peduncle, rounded; prophyll persistent 50 cm long, 10 cm wide becoming fibrous at apex, peduncular bract inserted at base of peduncle, absent in the mature infructescence, rachillae 161, each subcended by small acute bract, ca. 15 cm long, including staminate part, with 3 - 4 fruits at the base of each rachillae, epicarp orange red, mesocarp fleshy, fibrous, orange edible, endocarp black bony 3 mm thick, one seed per fruit, endosperm homogenous embryo subbasal (?); fruits oval, apiculate 6 cm long, 4 cm wide, fruiting perianth persistent, petals and sepals with minute black spines, epicarp with minute black spines. |
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