Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small palms 4–5 m tall.

Stems: Trunk slender, flexuous, closely ringed, ca. 15 cm in diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves rather dense and somewhat ruffled. Surfaces very slightly pulverulent, waxy–glaucous to pale green, lower surface ± with a few scattered, pale–colored, minute, almost rudimentary, punctiform scales. Veins parallel. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences apparently shorter than leaves, with a peduncular, subterete part ca. 15 mm in diameter, panicles apparently longer than the peduncular part, rather large, 30 cm long, glabrous throughout, divided into several spreading primary branches, lowermost panicle branches carry spirally, at different heights, as many as 10– 12 floriferous branchlets, the lowest one sometimes dividing again, or forked, upper branches simple; rachillae glabrous, subulate apically, with flowers uncrowded, spirally arranged and inserted on orbicular convex pulvinuli, each subtended by a very small bracteole 2–3 mm long; prophyll and peduncular bracts scarcely (inconspicuously) lepidote, usually glabrate. Flowers bisexual (perfect), sessile. Calyx cupular, shallowly 3-lobed, prominently nerved or smooth when dry. Corolla of 3 petals, adnate basally to the staminal filament tube to about the height of the calyx, the distinct lobes valvate in bud, caducous as the flower expands, prominently pocketed and furrowed within, prominently nerved when dry. Stamens 6; filaments flattened, thickish, connate basally into a tube equaling or exceeding the calyx and surrounding the carpels, then distinct and abruptly subulate, not inflexed at apex; anthers erect in bud, dorsifixed, spreading–erect to versatile at anthesis, oblong in outline, bifid basally nearly to the point of insertion, apex emarginate, the connective narrow; anther sacs longitudinally and laterally dehiscent. Ovary superior; carpels 3, normally only 1 maturing, coherent only basally; ovules 1 per carpel, with the broad–based styles connate above into a trigonous column tapering to a shallowly trifid stigma; ovules anatropous, erect, attached at the base of the placenta.

Fruit: Fruit globose– ovoid or very slightly longer than broad; 1.9–2 cm long; 1.8–1.9 cm in diameter; the apparently completely mature fruit pale greenish brown with a polished surface. Seeds distinct from endocarp except at the hilum; shiny; endosperm homogeneous except for a shallow invagination of the seed coat below the raphe; embryo lateral near the base opposite the raphe.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Presently restricted to cliff bases and terraces.

Elevation Range: 200–800 m.