| Field notes | Tree palm. Solitary, massive; stem at base 36cm diam., base with erect pneumatophores and short lateral roots; outer cortex green, hard, inner cortex reddish; pith soft, white. Internodes c. 25cm at base, increasing to 40cm, then decreasing to 5cm at crown. Scars 2cm wide, wavy; internodes smooth green. Stem 24cm dia, at crown; 14 leaves in crown. Leaf arcuate, 5.2m including sheath 1.85cm; true petiole absent; sheath tapering to 7cm at tip, grey indumentose with oblique combs of short golden spines. Auricles triangular 8x3cm. Leaflets 61 on each side of the rachis, regular; Inflorescence female emerging in clockwise direction accommodated in a groove in following leaf sheath, 2.65cm long in all, held horizontally; peduncle 60cm; prophyll 25cm. Peduncular bracts 5, 36 pendulous 1st order branches, the longest near the base to 1.2m long, bearing rachillae almost to the base, 49 rachillae in all; distal partial infl much shorter; rachillae rusty hairy; rachis bracts greenish-cream, drying brown. Immature fruit ellipsoid, shiny green. |
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