Aphandra

Aphandra natalia is a native palm tree in South America. It is the only species of the genus Aphandra. The endosperm of the seeds provides vegetable product ivory.

Features

Aphandra natalia is an upright, short-stemmed, scattered, non-reinforced palm. It is dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ) and repeatedly flowering. The petiole is short, the leaves are pinnate.

From the closely related genera of Phytelepheae Aphandra be distinguished by the following combination of characters: The male flowers have oblong anthers of long stamens, sitting at a not polyhedral receptaculum. The leaf sheaths produce abundant Piassava fibers that hang down and cover the upper part of the stem. The male flowers are in four or five groups, where the flowers axes form a funnel-shaped pseudo stem.

A male flower is 400 to 650 stamens.

The chromosome number is 2n = 36

Dissemination and locations

The genus is native to the western part of the Amazon basin and is found in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. It grows in lowland and foothill rainforest to 800 m high. Occasionally it is also cultivated at higher altitudes.

System

The genus Aphandra is placed in the subfamily Ceroxyloideae, Tribe Phytelepheae within the family Arecaceae. The genus is monotypic, it consists of a single type Aphandra narrow. Their sister group is Ammandra.

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

The name Aphandra was composed of the names of the two related genera: Ammandra, the ph comes from Phytelephas. The genus was first described in 1991, the type species Aphandra was performed as previously natalia natalia Ammandra.

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. 348ff.
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