Acoelorrhaphe

Acoelorrhaphe wrightii

Acoelorrhaphe wrightii is an American species of palm. It is the only species of the genus Acoelorrhaphe. It is spread used as an ornamental plant.

• 4.1 Notes and references

Features

Acoelorrhaphe wrightii is a moderately large, bushy growing, reinforced fan palm. She is bisexual and repeatedly flowering. The stem is slender, erect and covered with persistent leaf sheaths and bases of the petioles. Older stems are bare at the bottom. The internodes are very short.

The chromosome number is 2n = 36

The leaves are rather small, induplicat folded and costapalmat very short. The leaf sheath disintegrates into a verwobende mass of coarse brown fibers. The petiole is moderately long, slightly grooved on the top or flat, rounded at the bottom. He is heavily occupied with strong, triangular, back or inward curved spines. The adaxial Hastula is clearly trained and irregularly lobed; the abaxial Hastula is only a low back.

The leaf blade is approximately circular, rather flat, and regularly until about the middle divided into small, easily folded, rigid segments, the tip is deep in two parts ( bifid ). The upper leaf surface is usually silver, due to small scales. The midribs are at the bottom clearly protruding.

Inflorescences

The inflorescences are slender, standing alone between the sheets ( interfoliar ) and are longer than the leaves. They are up to four times branched. The peduncle is slender, long, elliptical in cross-section, and usually upright. The cover sheet is short, partly enclosed all the way from the leaf sheaths, Roehrig, side zweikielig, and tears on the apical and results in short, irregular lobes. The two bracts on the inflorescence stalk similar to the previous sheet, but they are much longer, and keeled flat. The inflorescence axis is approximately the same length as the stem, rather bald, and completely covered by the sheaths of the bracts -tube. The other axes are densely hairy. The bracts on the inflorescence stem are similar to those at the stem, but are smaller to the top of the inflorescence towards ever smaller. The first-order lateral axes have a zweikieliges, membranous cover sheet, which is more or less included in the first bract. The following bracts are very inconspicuous, triangular and membranous. The flower-bearing axes ( Rachillae ) are slim and wear in a spiral arrangement of small bracts, each of which in the armpit carries a small spur is at a group ( winding ) of two to three flowers. Each flower is again in the armpit of a narrow thin bract.

Flowers

The flowers are hermaphroditic and cream. The three sepals are fleshy and slightly fused at the base. The three petals are fused at a fourth of the length to the corolla tube. The six stamens are at the mouth of the corolla tube. The filaments are fused at the base into a flat cup, the free parts are narrowed abruptly to a filiform tip. In the bud they are not bent inwardly. The anthers are dorsifix, short, plump, move to flower and latrors. The gynoecium consists of three bare carpels that are fused only in the pen area. The ovule is sitting basal, erect and anatrop. The pollen is ellipsoidal with a slight to pronounced asymmetry. The germ is opening a distal sulcus.

Fruit and seeds

The fruit is small, round and develops from only one carpel. It is black and carries at the top of the scar the scar at the base of the undeveloped carpels. The exocarp is smooth, the mesocarp is thin and fleshy with longitudinal fibers. The endocarp is crust- shaped. The seed has a basal navel ( hilum ), the endosperm is homogeneous, but is pressed at one side of the seed coat.

Dissemination and locations

Acoeloraphe wrightii occurs in South Florida, the West Indies and Central America along parts of the Caribbean coast. It grows in brackish marshes, where it forms dense stands.

System

The genus Acoelorrhaphe is placed in the subfamily Coryphoideae, Tribe Trachycarpeae within the family Arecaceae, but here no one assigned to subtribe ( incertae sedis ).

In the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, just the way Acoelorrhaphe wrightii is recognized.

Acoelorrhaphe was first described by Hermann Wendland 1879, the type species is Acoelorrhaphe wrightii. Basionym for the species is Copernicia wrightii Griseb. & H.Wendl. The genus name is derived from the ancient Greek words or parts of words A = without, coelos = hollow and raphe = seam together, and refers to the fact that the seed has not dented raphe, as is typical of many representatives of the Coryphoideae.

The Style epithet honors the American botanist Charles Wright.

Synonyms for genus names are Paurotis OF Cook, and Acanthosabal Prosch.

Documents

• 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. 272-274.