Myrialepis
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| Myrialepis | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Myrialepis paradoxa |
Myrialepis is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family native to Southeast Asia, where the only species Myrialepis paradoxa is colloquially called rotan kertong, or simply rattan.[2] The genus name is a combination of the Greek words meaning "innumerable" and "scale", a description of the fruit, and the epithet is Latin for "paradox".
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[edit] Description
The trunks are clustering and climbing at 7 cm wide and are armed with whorls of sharp, golden spines. Reaching high into the canopy, the red to brown stems retain persistent leaf sheaths in its new growth but become bare toward the base, exposing conspicuous rings of leaf scars. Each mature leaf is comparatively large at 3 m, pinnate, and carried on armed petioles, with widely and regularly spaced, dark green leaflets. The spiny rachis extends well beyond the pinnae and is accompanied by pairs of recurved barbs adapted for climbing.[3]
Dioecious and hapaxanthic, male and female flowers are borne on separate plants, and the completion of flowering results in the death of the stem. The inflorescence is much branched, 60 cm long, and protrudes from the top of the trunk, accompanied by reduced leaves. The pistillate flowers are twice as big as the staminate, but otherwise similar, with the former producing shiny green to brown fruit, irregularly covered in tiny scales, each with one seed.
[edit] Distribution and habitat
This palm is found across Indochina, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Sumatra, Vietnam and peninsular Malaysia up to 1000 m in elevation. Forming large, dense colonies they occupy rain forest, rain forest clearings, and river banks. Being somewhat disfigured, the trunks are not used in furniture construction but are used for simple thatched basketry.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Beccari in J.D. Hooker, The Flora of British India 6:480. 1893. Type:M. paradoxa
- ^ Riffle, Robert L. and Craft, Paul (2003) An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms. Portland: Timber Press. ISBN-10: 0881925586 / ISBN-13: 978-0881925586
- ^ a b Uhl, Natalie W. and Dransfield, John (1987) Genera Palmarum - A classification of palms based on the work of Harold E. Moore. Lawrence, Kansas: Allen Press. ISBN-10: ISBN-10: 0935868305 / ISBN-13: 978-0935868302
