Volume 11 > Part 3 > Year 2013 > Page 374 > Arecaceae > Calamus

35. Calamus platyspathus Mart. ex Kunthwfo-0000759276

Enum. Pl. 3: 209. 1841.

Accepted Name : This is currently accepted.

Synonyms & Citations :

Description : Slender, clustering rattan. Stems climbing to 25 m long, without sheaths 1.2–1.6 cm diam., with sheaths 2.5–3.9 cm diam., internodes 20–45 cm long. Leaves ecirrate; sheaths green with abundant upward-pointing flattened brown to blackish spines, varying from 2–4 cm long, the spines sometimes with several points, the larger spines interspersed with numerous needle-like spines, caducous reddish-brown indumentum abundant between the spines, spines around the leaf sheath mouth much larger than the rest, to 8 cm long; knee conspicuous, armed with needle-like spines; ocrea to 10 cm long, pale brown, papery and soon disintegrating; flagellum to 1–3.5 m long; petiole to 25 cm long, armed as the sheath but with smaller spines; rachis 0.8–1.7 m long; leaflets 4–8, regularly or slightly irregularly arranged but rather distant, the largest to 55 by 8 cm, somewhat cucullate, conspicuously discolorous, adaxially bright to dark green, densely covered in chalky white indumentum abaxially, apical pair free or joined in basal half, rachis to 0.8 m long. Inflorescences male and female superficially similar, with a terminal flagellum and with up to 4 partial inflorescences, each subtended by a conspicuous open bract tubular at the very base, the male branched to 3 orders, the female to 2 orders; male rachillae to 4 by 0.1 cm, female rachillae to 8 by 0.2 cm. Fruit rounded, to 8 cm diam., with a short beak to 0.1 by 0.1 cm, and covered in vertical rows of whitish scales. Seed ca 0.6 cm diam., endosperm homogeneous.

Thailand : PENINSULAR: Surat Thani.

Distribution : Myanmar (type).

Ecology : Evergreen forests, to 400 m alt.

Vernacular : Wai khi kai (หวายขี้ไก่)(Surat Thani).

Uses: Not recorded.

Conservation Status: Not known.

Notes: Distinctive in the ecirrate leaves with few irregularly arranged leaflets that are dense chalky white on the undersurface and the flagellate inflorescences with expanded flattened bracts.