| Field notes | Immense solitary palm. Stem to 8m tall, ca. 35cm d.b.h., obscurely ringed with leaf scars below, strikingly ringed above, pale brown, scars ca. 5 cm apart and about 5cm proud. Leaves ca. 30 in the crown, to 5m long; sheath brown, fibrous; leaf base ca. 1 m long, rich brown tomentoso, ca. 25cm wide; true petiole lacking; leaf base fibres dissolving to give a "false petiole"; leaflets rather stiff, very regular, narrow, ca. 100 on each side of the rachis; basal leaflets very slender, narrow, more distal leaflets much longer; leaflets rich shiny green on both surfaces, transverse veinlets very conspicuous; ramenta conspicuous on the lower surface of the midrib. Inflorescence massive, interfoliar; prophyll ca. 90cm long, two-keeled, somewhat fibrous, remaining hidden among the leaf sheaths, brown; peduncle ca. lm long, circular in cross-section, brown tomentoso, ca. 8cm diam.; peduncular bract 90cm long, inserted at the tip of the peduncle, very thick, deeply longitudinally grooved, beaked, splitting longitudinally and circumscissile leaving a collar 3cm wide, the brct. very hard on the outside, pale cream-coloured and slightly spongey internally; rachis very short, ca. 10 cm only; rachillae ca. 46, ca. 50cm long, each with a grossly swollen basal pulvinus. Flowers covered with white wax, otherwise yellowish, tinged reddish. Young fruit purplish-brown, covered with rich brown indumentum. Used for house construction; the apex also eaten, Perhaps about 100 individuals seen, but only 7 with trunks. N.V. "maruala" |
