Eremospatha

Eremospatha is a native of tropical Africa, climbing palm species. Calyx and corolla of the hermaphroditic flowers are conspicuously thick.

• 5.1 Notes and references

Features

The representatives are more stocky, high climbing Rattanpalmen with pinnate leaves. They bloom several times and are hermaphroditic. The tribe has long internodes and is circular in cross-section. Young stems are thinner than older ones. In the axils arise saplings.

The chromosome number is unknown.

The leaves are pinnate, bifid in young plants ( two-piece). You have a terminal tendril. The leaf sheath is a non-reinforced tube, longitudinally striped, sometimes hairy. The Ochrea is striking, tight fit and trimmed. A petiole is formed on young stems and lack of older climbing stems. The rachis is usually occupied with recurved spines. Sit in pairs recurved Akanthophylle on the vine. There are few to numerous leaflets, which are usually simply folded. In young plants, the leaves are sometimes undivided. The leaflets are occupied along the thickened edges with spines. The lowest few few leaflets are usually much smaller than the other and strongly reinforced.

Inflorescences

The inflorescences have arched outwards and are once branched. The side branches are horizontal. The peduncle is within the leaf sheath of his liner sheet and extends somewhat beyond the opening. He is not fused with the lying on the supporting sheet internode. All bracts in the inflorescence are very inconspicuous. A cover sheet should be missing. Bracts on the inflorescence stem missing. The inflorescence axis is substantially longer than the peduncle. The located on their bracts are flat, triangular. The side axes are fused for a short distance to the main axis. You are distich ( two rows ). At her distich are also very small bracts, again is one pair of the same flowers without Brakteolen in the armpits.

Flowers

The flowers are pale and very fragrant. The cup is thick, leathery and slightly three-lobed. The crown is also thick, leathery and divided into three triangular, valvate lobes to one-quarter to one-third of the length. The six stamens are united into a massive, fleshy, epipetalen ring and cover largely the entrance to the flower and include the gynoecium. The free part of the filaments is very short, the anthers and also somewhat arrow-shaped. The gynoecium consists of three carpels, contains three ovules, is round, covered with scales and bears at the top of a columnar to narrowed pen with three scars. The ovules sit basal and are anatrop.

The pollen is ellipsoidal and bisymmetrical. The germ is opening a distal sulcus. The longest axis is 32 to 63 microns long.

Fruit and seeds

The fruit contains one to three seeds. The scar remains are very small and are apically, the perianth is also retained. The exocarp is covered with vertical rows of reddish brown scales. The mesocarp is fleshy to maturity, a endocarp is not differentiated. The seeds sit subbasal, their shape is - depending on the number of seeds per fruit - third -, half- or full sphere to ellipsoid.

Dissemination and locations

The representatives come in the humid rain forests of West Africa prior to the Congo basin and east to Tanzania. Most often they grow in rain forests on swampy soils.

System

The genus Eremospatha is placed in the subfamily Calamoideae, Tribe Lepidocaryeae, subtribe Ancistrophyllinae within the family Arecaceae. She is the sister group of Laccosperma. The monophyly of the genus has not yet been studied ( as of 2008).

In the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the following types are recognized:

• Eremospatha barendii
• Eremospatha cabrae
• Eremospatha cuspidata
• Eremospatha dransfieldii
• Eremospatha haullevilleana
• Eremospatha hookeri
• Eremospatha laurentii
• Eremospatha macrocarpa
• Eremospatha quinqucostulata
• Eremospatha tessmanniana
• Eremospatha wendlandiana

The name Eremospatha is composed of the Greek words for without and spathe and refers to the lack of conspicuous bracts in the inflorescence.

Fossil history

An incompletely preserved leaflets with a single sting from the Oligocene of Ethiopia was assigned by the authors as Eremospatha chigaensis the genus.

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. 150-152.