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Classification
Caryota
Nomenclature
SUMMARY
Moderate-sized to robust tree palms, solitary or clustered, monoecious with bisexual inflorescences, male and female flowering separated in time, hapaxanthic. Leaves bipinnately divided, induplicate; sheath closed at first, later disintegrating into a fibrous network opposite the petiole, often densely covered by rusty scaly hairs; pinnae regularly arranged, straight and more less oriented in one plane, each divided into a number of pinnules (second order pinnae), these evenly distributed in one plane to drooping and untidy looking, triangular in outline with two straight sides and one irregularly lobed, praemorse side. Flowering basipetal. Inflorescence bearing 6–8 bracts, branched to first order, drooping, bisexual. Flowers dimorphic. Male flowers with 6 to >100 functional stamens and without a pistillode. Female flowers with more or less three-angled ovary, sessile stigmas and 3 locules. Fruit globose, 1–2 seeded; epicarp smooth, brightly coloured to dark at maturity, mesocarp fleshy, with high density of raphide containing ideoblasts causing skin irritation, endocarp not differentiated. Seed with homogeneous or ruminate endosperm.
Thirteen species in India, throughout SE Asia, N Australia and W Pacific to Vanuatu. Four species in Thailand.