Coco de Mer

Coco de mer ( Lodoicea maldivica )

The coco de mer ( Lodoicea maldivica ), also called or Seychelles, is an endemic species of palm that is found only in the Seychelles. It is limited to the islands of Praslin and Curieuse, but here is some pure stands. Their seeds are the largest of the vegetable kingdom.

• 5.1 Notes and references

Features

The coco de mer is a powerful, often high, solitary, non-reinforced fan palm. It is dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ) and repeatedly flowering. The stem is erect at the base, slightly enlarged and covered with inconspicuous rings of leaf scars. It reaches heights of 24 meters with trunk diameters of up to 50 cm. The crown forms a hemisphere and consists of about 15 to 20 leaves.

The palm trees grow very slowly and can probably reach an age of 200 years.

The chromosome number is 2n = 34

The leaves are folded induplikat, costapalmat and remain after the death of the plant ( Marzeszenz ), at higher palm trees they fall under its own weight. The leaf sheath tears soon opposite the petiole on, and at the stem base is a triangular column forms. The petiole is 1.8 to 3.6 m long. He is strong, rounded at the top with a deep trough at the bottom. The underside is covered with small black spots and hairy irregular. The midrib (Costa) is long, gradually narrowing and reaches almost to the end of blade. The leaf blade is about as long as the petiole. It is up to 5.4 m long and 3.6 m wide. It is stiff, wedge-shaped at the base, and to one third the length divided to about a quarter in just folded segments. These are just two parts ( bifid ), the free ends often hanging down. The top is shiny, smooth, the bottom is blunt with a thick pubescence along the abaxial folds. The midribs are at the bottom clearly visible.

Inflorescences and flowers

The inflorescences are solid, stand between the sheets ( interfoliar ) and shorter than the leaves. They are hanging. Male and female inflorescences are significantly different.

Male inflorescences and flowers

The male inflorescences have a short, narrow peduncle. They are often unbranched, and end with a single Rachilla ( flower-bearing axis) or fingered in two to three arranged Rachillae. The cover sheet is short, zweikielig and ventral split, but has a long, closed triangular tip. There is a bract on peduncle that hides the stem. It is Roehrig and ventral split across the middle, and form a long, solid pointed beak. The Rachillae are massive, kitten -like and wear at the base of several large, empty cup-like bracts. About this stand in a spiral arrangement very tough, leathery bracts that have grown laterally and distally form large pits. In each of these pits is a bent backward winding from 60 to 70 male flowers.

Each male flower has a fibrous Brakteole. The three sepals are fused together into an asymmetric tube, the lobes are free imbricat and asymmetric. The crown consists of a long stalk -like base and three elongated lobes, which are unequal in width and not laterally close to the androecium. The tips of the ears are thick, plump and imbricat. A flower contains 17 to 22 stamens that are on the surface of an elongated Receptaculums. The filaments are short, broad, the anthers are oblong, the tips bent backwards, and latrors. The stamp rudiment is columnar and three parts.

The pollen is ellipsoidal and bisymmetrical. The germ is opening a distal sulcus. The longest axis measures 61 to 68 microns.

Female inflorescences and flowers

The female inflorescence is unbranched. It has a cover page and two ( rarely three up ) tubed bracts on the inflorescence stalk. These are divided anteriorly, a long, pointed end have similar to the male inflorescences. There is only one Rachilla, which is a direct extension of the peduncle. It is short, broad, zigzag bent and narrowed towards the end. It has several empty cup-shaped bracts. The following bracts are large and carry each a female flower.

The female flower is the largest known flower in the palm family. The flowers are sessile, ovate at the base and have two lateral, large cup-shaped Brakteolen. The three sepals are free imbricat, leathery, rounded basally and becoming thicker. The three petals similar to the sepals. The staminodes are triangular, low, basal grown and have more pointed ends. The gynoecium is egg-shaped, consists of three carpels, is three years old with a central, three-lobed Septalnektarium. The handle diaper area is broad, triangular and fibrous. The three stigmas are short and bent back. The ovules are beaked, orthotropic, winged sides and two lateral bodies, may not be developed ovules.

Fruit and seeds

The fruit is very large, and grow up to 50 cm long. It is egg-shaped and pointed. It contains a (rarely to three) seeds. The exocarp is smooth, the mesocarp fibrous. The endocarp is composed of one to three two-lobed, thick and hard rock cores.

The seed is the largest known plant seeds. He is bilobed as the stone core, the endosperm is thick, relatively hard, hollow and homogeneous. The embryo is located apically in the sinus between the two lobes.

A seed has a weight of 10 to 25 kg. As a fruit can be up to three seeds, is their weight to 45 kg.

A palm tree usually forms only one crop per year. The ripening of fruit takes up to seven years.

Distribution, locations and hazard

The coco de mer is endemic to the Seychelles. Today, it is limited to the slopes and valleys of Praslin and Curieuse. In the past they also occurred on the neighboring islands. You're lacking in the coastal plains and along the ridges.

It grows on almost all soils. Your best growth it shows in forests on deep, well water spacious valley floors. Here is the coco de mer almost pure stand or mixed stands together with other palms ( as Deckenia nobilis) or with the screw pine Pandanus hornei. These stocks are characterized by low understory, which is due to the lack of light and the high leaf litter. In the stem bark epiphytes such as lichens grow. In the crown to the inflorescences ferns can grow. With the Palm stocks closely related are some endemic species: the Little Black Parrot ( Coracopsis barklyi nigra ), Hypsipetes crassirostris and the three gecko species: Phelsuma sunbergi, Phelsuma astriata and Ailuronyx seychellensis.

The IUCN was in 2011 the total population with 8282 adult individuals. Most come in three subpopulations: the Vallée de Mai, in Fond Ferdinand and Curieuse.

In the last three generations, the decline in population to approximately 30 % is estimated. Reasons for the loss of habitat, natural fires and slash and burn, infrastructure development, introduced pathogens and parasites, and collecting and poaching of nuts and seeds. The degree of hazard is classified as "endangered " ( high risk ).

System

The genus Lodoicea is placed in the subfamily Coryphoideae, Tribe and subtribe Borasseae Lataniinae within the family Arecaceae. The genus is monotypic, it consists of a single type Lodoicea maldivica. Her sister group may be the group of Borassodendron and Borassus.

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

The genus was named after the French King Louis XV. named.

The specific epithet maldivica refers to the Maldives and comes from a time when the seeds were known from the Maldives only from alluvial copies.

Use

The leaves are used locally for thatching and for weaving. Palisade and water troughs are produced from the wood. From the seeds Dinnerware is made. They are used as a vegetable product ivory. With the fluff of young leaves cushions are filled. The sale of the nuts to tourists is a significant source of income.

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. 323-325.