Crested palms

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Crested palms
Talipot palm

Talipot palm

Systematics
Class : Bedecktsamer (Magnoliopsida)
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Palm- like arecales
Family : Palm family (Arecaceae)
Genre : Crested palms
Scientific name
Corypha
L.

The crested palms ( Corypha ) are a genus of tall fan palms. Crested palms occur from India through Southeast Asia to northern Australia. It is the only representative of the Corypheae tribe . The largest compound inflorescences of the plant kingdom occur in the genus .

features

The representatives are large, hermaphrodite tree-shaped fan palms . They are hapaxanth , so they bloom only once in a lifetime and die after fruiting. They are single-stemmed and reinforced. The trunk is erect and dense with ring-shaped leaf scars that sometimes form spirals. Mature trees can reach a height of 30 m with a trunk diameter of 90 cm.

The chromosome number is 2n = 36.

leaves

The leaves are folded induplicate, costapalmat , and in young plants remain on the plant after they have died (marzescence), in older specimens with a trunk they can break off under their own weight. The leaf sheath sometimes has lateral lobes, later sometimes a conspicuous, triangular cleft appears under the stem. The edges of the leaf sheath tend to dissolve into fibers. The petiole is massive, long and hairy. It is deeply grooved on the top, rounded on the underside and teeth on the sides. The adaxial hastula is well developed, the abaxial hastula rather irregular.

The leaf blade is regularly divided into simply folded segments up to half the radius. The segments themselves are in turn slightly divided at their abaxial folding edge. The segments have clear longitudinal veins, numerous transverse veins. Along the folds there is flaky hair, which is more pronounced on the underside of the leaf.

Inflorescences

The inflorescences are above the leaves in the axils of reduced, scale-like leaves. They form a massive, composite, inflorescence-like structure, which in Corypha umbraculifera can reach a height of 10 m. The individual inflorescences grow out of the mouth of the bract-like leaves or through an abaxial crack in them. They are threefold, each side branch ends in a rachilla (flower-bearing axis). The cover sheet of an inflorescence is double-keeled and empty. The bracts are tubular, the proximal zero to a few are empty, the other bracts are inconspicuous, triangular and have side branches of the first or higher order. The rachillae have coils of up to ten individual flowers in a spiral arrangement .

blossoms

The flowers are hermaphroditic and stand on short stems, which are formed by the base of the calyx and the receptaculum . The calyx is tubular at the base and ends with three flat, triangular tips. The petals are boat-shaped, basal imbricat , their edges are usually rolled up. There are six stamens , of which the three episepals are free, the three antepetal are basally connected to the petals. The filaments have a fleshy base and taper towards the top. The anthers are short, basal slightly arrow-shaped, medifix and latrors. The gynoeceum consists of three intergrown carpels , so it is synkarp, and contains three ovules . The ovary is spherical and has three distinct furrows. The stylus is long and also dreifurchig, the scar is barely trained. The ovules are hemianatropic.

The pollen is ellipsoidal and mostly slightly asymmetrical. The germ opening is a distal sulcus. The longest axis measures 28 to 40 micrometers.

Fruits and seeds

The fruit is spherical and single-seeded with remnants of basal stigmas. The exocarp is smooth, the mesocarp fleshy and the endocarp thin and mostly connected to the seed. The seed is spherical, with a basal umbilicus (hilum) and shallow furrows that correspond to the raphen bundles . The endosperm is homogeneous and can have a central cavity. The embryo sits apically.

Distribution and locations

The genus occurs from India across Southeast Asia to northern Australia . The main distribution area extends from the Bay of Bengal through Indochina and Malesia to Northern Australia. There is a separate area in South India and Sri Lanka . The range is likely to be heavily influenced by humans, as many occurrences are near human settlements. Wild occurrences are likely to be a hallmark of open societies such as floodplains or storm-shaped forests near the sea. They are absent in climax societies of the tropical rainforest.

Systematics

The genus Corypha L. is placed within the family Arecaceae in the subfamily Coryphoideae and here alone forms the tribe Corypheae. The genus is monophyletic . It is part of a syncarpian clade within the subfamily, its sister group is probably the tribe Borasseae , perhaps also the group from Borasseae and Caryoteae .

In the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , the following types are recognized:

  • Corypha lecomtei Becc. ex Lecomte : The homeland is Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
  • Corypha microclada Becc. : The home is the Philippines.
  • Corypha taliera Roxb. : The range extends from India to Myanmar.
  • Talipot palm ( Corypha umbraculifera L. ): It is native to southwestern India and Sri Lanka.
  • Corypha utan Lam. : The range extends from the Andamans and Assam to Indochina and northern Australia.

Corypha was first described in Carl von Linnés Species Plantarum of 1753 . The type is Corypha umbraculifera . The generic name is derived from the ancient Greek word "koryphe" for summit, which perhaps refers to the large inflorescence at the top of the stem.

use

The representatives of the genus are used in many ways. The leaves are used as a material for roofing, as a writing pad, for umbrellas, baskets and the like. Strength has been gained from the tribe in the past .

The Talipot palm and Coryphautan are used as ornamental plants.

literature

  • John Dransfield, Natalie W. Uhl, Conny B. Asmussen, William J. Baker, Madeline M. Harley, Carl E. Lewis: Genera Palmarum. The Evolution and Classification of Palms . Second edition, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2008, ISBN 978-1-84246-182-2 , pp. 306-308.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Robert L. Riffle, Paul Craft, Paul: An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms . Timber Press, Portland 2003, ISBN 0881925586 , p. 315.
  2. a b c d e f Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Corypha. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved August 4, 2018.

Web links

Commons : Crested Palms ( Corypha )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files