| Field notes | Stem cespitose. Base widened, with numerous 0.5 cm thick adventitious roots. 13,4 m tall, 8 cm diam. at base, 6 cm diam. at top, grey brown, smooth or shallowly longitudinally fissured at the base, conspicuously ringed from the leafscars at the top, nodes 1 - 2 cm wide, internodes 3-5 cm long at the top. Leaves 6, spreading, crownshaft 80 cm long, slightly swollen. Sheath olive green, outer one split to 6 cm from the base, the margin split into a netted fibrous loose tube that surrounds the inner leaves. Petiole 42 cm long, rounded below, shallowly channelled above, with sharp margins, smooth, dark green when old, covered with brown tomentum when young. Rachis 294 cm long, rounded below, ridged above, dark green when old, brown tomentose when young. Pinnae 59 per side, evenly spaced along the rachis or occasionally in groups of two in the middle of blade when group then inserted on rachis in different angles, alternate, green above, greyish below, basal pinna 40 x 0.8 cm, middle pinna 75 x 7 cm, apical pinna 16 x 1 cm. Infructescence infrafoliar. Peduncle with a swollen base encircling the stem, 8 cm long, prophyll scar 3 cm from base, peduncular bract scar 5 cm from base. Rachis 8 cm long, rounded. Rachillae drooping, 50 cm long, with 7 cm long sterile part at the base. Fruits up to 14 per rachillae, subglobose, 3 cm long, 2.5 cm wide. Peduncle, rachillae and rachis reddish brown, furfuraceous. Fruits blackish purple; mesocarp white, 1 cm thick; endocarp dark brown, fibrous, thin. Endosperm with an outer 6 mm thick, translucently white layer with a radial lined texture and the center yellowish white amorphous with an extension towards the base. |
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