Volume 11 > Part 3 > Year 2013 > Page 482 > Arecaceae > Plectocomiopsis

2. Plectocomiopsis wrayi Becc.wfo-0000275193

in Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 6: 488. 1893.

Accepted Name : This is currently accepted.

Synonyms & Citations :

Description : Clustering, moderate-sized rattan forming rather dense thickets. Stems climbing to 30 m long, without sheaths distinctly triangular in cross-section, to 1.3 cm diam., with sheaths to 2 cm diam., internodes to 40 cm near the ground, usually much less (c. 20 cm) in stems in the forest canopy. Leaves cirrate; sheaths dull green, armed with evenly scattered, slightly upward pointing golden spines to 0.3 cm long and covered with sparse reddish-brown indumentum; ocrea very short, to 0.5 cm long, truncate, golden brown; flagellum absent; petiole to ca 15 cm long, densely covered in caducous red brown scales and abaxially very sparsely armed with reflexed spines; rachis to 90 cm long; cirrus to ca 1 m long; leaflets 15–20 on each side of the rachis, regularly arranged, rather distant (c. 5 cm apart), the longest to ca 30 by 3 cm, acuminate in long drip tips, armed along the adaxial surface of the main vein with short golden spinules to 0.2 cm long. Inflorescences to 30 cm long, produced simultaneously from the axils of the uppermost reduced leaves, the male branched to 2 orders, the female to 1 order; first order branches to ca 20 cm long. Male flowers borne on very short ca 0.8 cm, strongly curved branches from bracts on the first order branches; female flowers borne in groups of 2 or 3 flowers only. Mature fruit borne on persistent enlarged and split calyx and corolla, slightly oblate and obscurely three-angled, ca 2.5 by 3 cm, with a short beak to 1 by 1 mm, and covered in ca 22 vertical rows of yellow brown scales with dark margins. Seed ca 2 by 1.5 cm; endosperm homogeneous. Seedling leaf unknown.

Thailand : PENINSULAR: Narathiwat.

Distribution : Peninsular Malaysia (type).

Ecology : Confined to lowland freshwater swamp forests.

Vernacular : Wai daeng (หวายแดง)(Narathiwat); lae-mae-ka-yo (แลแมกาเย๊าะ)(Malay-Narathiwat)

Conservation Status: Almost certainly seriously threatened by destruction of the very narrowly circumscribed lowland habitat of this palm.

Notes: Distinctive in the presence of a neat, strictly tubular truncate ocrea. Juvenile stems are distinctly 3-angled.