Oraniopsis

Oraniopsis appendiculata

Oraniopsis appendiculata is a native palm species in Australia. She is the only member of the genus Oraniopsis. She is a very slowly growing palm whose rosette stage lasts several decades.

Features

Oraniopsis similar to the closely related genera Ceroxylon and Juania, but differs from them by the following combination of characters: The petals are free, the flowers have six stamens, and the scars residues on the fruit sit basal.

There are medium-sized, solitary, non-reinforced palms, which are dioecious and repeatedly flowering. The stem is erect and sometimes very high, the leaf scars are hardly noticeable. The numerous leaves are pinnate, the segments are folded reduplicat ( Λ - shaped). They have more up than down and remain after the death of the plant ( Marzeszenz ): several dead leaves hang down vertically before falling after some time yet. The leaf sheath is initially Roehrig, but breaks with time. The petiole is rather short. The lamina consists of many single-folded segments that are stiff and linear with irregular pointed or sharpened.

The inflorescences appear singly in the axils of the leaves, shorter than the leaves, male and female inflorescences are similar. You are branched four times. The ovary is dreifächrig with one ovule. The fruit develops from a single carpel, is round with a smooth, ripen yellow exocarp and mesocarp rather fleshy, containing fibers and stone cells. A endocarp is not differentiated.

The chromosome number is unknown.

Dissemination and locations

Oraniopsis appendiculata is limited to the Australian state of Queensland, where it grows in the rain forests of the mountains from the Tully River area to the Big Tableland. The main deposits are between 300 and 1500 m above sea level on granite and metamorphic rocks. Rarely, it occurs on shallow basaltic soils with restricted drainage.

System

Oraniopsis is classified within the family in the subfamily Ceroxyloideae, Tribe Ceroxyleae. The genus is monotypic, it consists of a single type Oraniopsis appendiculata. Their systematic position within the tribe is not entirely clear, studies once they see as a sister group of Ravenea or as a sister group to the group from Ceroxylon and Juania.

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

The name means Oraniopsis similar to the genus Orania. The genus was originally a section of Orania, but which it is not closely related.

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. 341-343.