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Classification
Eugeissona tristis Griff.
Nomenclature
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Genus: Eugeissona
SUMMARY
Fiercely spiny acaulescent palm forming dense thickets of up to 12 individual stems in the forest undergrowth. Leaves 7–10 per mature shoot, up to 8 m long; petiole up to 3 m long, up to 5 cm diam. at the tip of the ligule, densely covered with irregularly arranged shiny black spines to 5 cm long, decreasing in size towards the petiole tip; rachis armed as the petiole; leaflets to 100 or more on each side of the rachis, regularly arranged, with abundant black bristles along the midrib, the longest leaflets to 90 cm long, 2–4 cm wide. Inflorescence system terminal, shorter than the leaves, to 5 m tall, subtending leaves of lateral inflorescences gradually decreasing to bracts; ultimate branches terminating in cupules of 12–13 tightly imbricate brown striate unarmed bracts, enclosing a pair of flowers comprising a male and a hermaphroditic flower, the males of the inflorescence emerging first, followed by the hermaphroditic. Male flowers borne on a short pedicel to 1 cm long, to 6 cm long, shiny brown; calyx to 2 cm, striate; petals to 6 cm, tubular at the base, distally split into 3 spine tipped woody petals; stamens 22–27, anthers elongate, dangling at anthesis. Hermaphroditic flower similar to the male flower, but with an asymmetrically flattened tip in bud; gynoecium ovoid, tipped with conspicuous pyramidal stigma. Fruit at maturity 7–9 x 3–5 cm, beaked; epicarp scales brown, somewhat irregularly arranged; endocarp with 3 + 3 flanges penetrating the homogeneous endosperm.