Jelly palms

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Jelly palms
Butia capitata in a garden in Madrid

Butia capitata in a garden in Madrid

Systematics
Order : Palm- like arecales
Family : Palm family (Arecaceae)
Subfamily : Arecoideae
Tribe : Cocoeae
Sub tribus : Butiinae
Genre : Jelly palms
Scientific name
Butia
( Becc. ) Becc.

The butia ( Butia ) are a plant genus in the family of the palm family (Arecaceae). There are natural occurrences in South America , especially in Brazil , Uruguay , Paraguay and Argentina .

description

The Butia species are strong, single-stemmed palms. They have arching pinnate leaves.

The jelly palms are one of the few palm genera whose representatives are single-sexed ( monoecious ). So there are both male and female inflorescences on a palm . The fruit contains one to three seeds.

Butia paraguayensis fruits

use

In their countries of origin, the common jelly palm ( Butia capitata ) is grown as a useful plant, as the plants bear plum-sized fruits that are suitable for direct consumption and for making jellies and jams. The taste is similar to peaches and pineapples. The particularly nutritious kernels are ideal for the production of animal feed , but can also be consumed as nuts. A full-grown plant can carry up to 100 kilograms of fruit in its natural environment. However, since only a very small part of the resulting kernels is able to germinate, it is necessary to carry a large amount of fruit for reproduction. Outside of Latin America, however, the fruits of the jelly palm are largely unknown and hardly available. The fruits are also hardly available in Latin America, as most of the production is used for further processing.

The other species play no role as useful plants and are only cultivated as ornamental plants. The frost resistance varies between -8 ° C and -12 ° C depending on the plant. Some types of jelly palm are sold in Central European market gardens and can be planted in regions of hardiness zone 8 or higher (e.g. in the Rhine Valley or on the North Sea coast). For regeneration, temperatures above 20 ° C are necessary, which means that planted jelly palms in Central Europe grow very slowly.

Common jelly palm ( Butia capitata ) with fruits
Butia paraguayensis in Uruguay
Yatay jelly palm ( Butia yatay ) in Argentina

Systematics

The genus Butia (Becc.) Becc. was set up in 1916 by the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari . In 1887 he first used the name Butia as a name for a subgenus of the genus Cocos .

In the genus of the jelly palms ( Butia ) about 20 species are distinguished:

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Odoardo Beccari: Il Genere Cocos Linn. e le Palme Affini . In: L'Agricoltura Coloniale . tape 10 , 1916, p. 489-524 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Butia. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved August 5, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c Walter Erhardt among others: The great pikeperch. Encyclopedia of Plant Names . Volume 2. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008. ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7

literature

Web links

Commons : Jelly Palms ( Butia )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files