Lepidocaryum tenue

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Lepidocaryum tenue
Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Palm- like arecales
Family : Palm family (Arecaceae)
Genre : Lepidocaryum
Type : Lepidocaryum tenue
Scientific name of the  genus
Lepidocaryum
Mart.
Scientific name of the  species
Lepidocaryum tenue
Mart.

Lepidocaryum tenue is a palm species native to tropical South America. It is the only representative of the genus Lepidocaryum .

features

The representatives are multi-stemmed, unreinforced fan palms . They are diocesan and bloom several times. The trunk is upright and arises from a slender rhizome . The internodes are short, the leaf scars rather inconspicuous.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 30.

leaves

The leaves are small and palmat (divided in the shape of a hand). The leaf sheath tears opposite the petiole and is often covered with a very thick coat of hair. The petiole is long. A hastula is usually missing. The leaf blade is divided into a few, pointed, differently wide segments by a few cracks reaching to the base of the leaf.

Inflorescences

The inflorescences are solitary and between the leaves. Male and female inflorescences are similar and double branched. The cover sheet is tubular, close fitting, two-keeled and thus two short lobes. The inflorescence stalk is long and has several tubular bracts. The inflorescence axis is longer than the stalk. The bracts on the inflorescence axis resemble those on the stalk, but tear at the tip. Each bract has a side branch of the first order. These are rather short and have a basal, tubular, two-keeled cover sheet and sometimes an empty tubular bract, as well as tubular bracts in disticher arrangement, each bearing a flower-bearing side axis (rachilla).

The male rachillae are rather short and arched back. The flowers are solitary or in pairs on them . The female rachillae are very short, the flowers are solitary on them.

blossoms

The male flowers are symmetrical. The calyx is tubular and briefly three-lobed. The crown extends far beyond the calyx, the base is fused, the tips are valvate . The six stamens start at the base of the petals. The stamens are thick and fleshy, the anthers are rather small, basifix and latrors.

The pollen is ellipsoidal and bisymmetrical. The germ opening is a distal sulcus. The longest axis measures 28 to 41 microns.

The female flowers are larger than the male. The chalice is tubular and three-lobed. The crown is much longer than the calyx, tubular in the lower third and has three long lobes. There are six staminodes with tiny, empty anthers. The gynoeceum is incompletely triple and rounded. It includes three ovules . The surface is covered with vertical rows of scales. The stylus is conical and short three-lobed. The ovules are anatropic .

Fruits and seeds

The fruit is spherical to elongated, usually has a seed and has apical remains of scars. The exocarp is covered with vertical rows of reddish-brown scales. The mesocarp is thin and an endocarp is not differentiated. The seed sits on the side of the fruit near the base. The endosperm is homogeneous.

Distribution and locations

Lepidocaryum tenue grows in the more humid areas of the Amazon basin, in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. It grows in the undergrowth of the tropical lowland rainforests.

Systematics

The genus Lepidocaryum is placed within the family Arecaceae in the subfamily Calamoideae , Tribe Lepidocaryeae , Subtribus Mauritiinae . It is the sister group of the group from Mauritia and Mauritiella . It is the smallest representative of the subtribes.

In the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, only the species Lepidocaryum tenue Mart. recognized and divided into three varieties:

  • Lepidocaryum tenue var. Casiquiarense (Spruce) AJHend. : It occurs from southeastern Colombia to northern Brazil.
  • Lepidocaryum var. Gracile (Mart.) AJHend. : It occurs from Guyana to northern Brazil.
  • Lepidocaryum tenue var. Tenue (usually referred to as “Irapay” in Spanish) .: It occurs in the western Amazon region.

The name Lepidocaryum is made up of the Greek words for scale and nut and refers to the scaly fruit.

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. 158-161.
  • Kember Mejía: Las palmeras en los mercados de Iquitos . In: Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Études Andines , vol. 21 (1992), issue 2, pp. 75-79.
  • Nigel Smith: Palms and People in the Amazon . Springer, Cham 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-35718-8 , pp. 319-324: Lepidocaryum tenue .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Lepidocaryum. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  2. ^ Nigel Smith: Palms and People in the Amazon . Springer, Cham 2015, pp. 319-324.

Web links

  • Lepidocaryum on the homepage of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden