Basselinia moorei (Basselinia moorei)

Description

Solitary, monoecious, unarmed, pleonanthic palm. Stem 6-0 m tall, 0- 5 cm in diam. breast high, brown to grey, with slightly to moderately prominent leaf scars. Leaves 8-0 per crown, arcuately spreading, regularly pinnate. Leaf sheath caducous, forming a loose to rather prominent, somewhat swollen crownshaft, covered abaxially with a dense and short brown or grey tomentum, 0.5-0.7 m long; petiole concave adaxially, prominently winged by sheath extensions, 5-0 cm long; rachis slightly to strongly recurved, .6-.9 m long; pinnae 5-35 on each side, regularly arranged, moderately stiff, directed forward and upward, light green; medifixed or longifixed ramenta scarce, restricted to the base of nerves abaxially; basal pinnae 38-40 x cm, median pinnae 64-66 x 4 cm wide, apical pinnae about 40-4 x cm. Inflorescences -3 simultaneously, infrafoliar, to 50 cm long and 60 cm wide; stiffly spreading, divaricate, covered with a velutinous, brownish-grey, hairy-scaly indument; peduncle 0- cm long, flattened; prophyll incompletely encircling peduncle at insertion, peduncular bract rostrate; rachis about 0 cm long, with 5-0 first-order branches; rachillae 0-36 cm long. Staminate flowers 5-6 mm long; 4.5-5 mm in diam. at late bud; sepals 3.5-3.8 mm long, .5 mm wide, ovate-oblong, slightly acute towards the apex, distinct, imbricate, strongly cucullate at early bud stage; petals 5 mm long, 3 mm wide, elliptic, glabrous, connate up to mid-height, valvate at the apex; stamens 6-7, 3.5-4 mm long, filaments mm long, mm in diam., connate at the base for mm, cylindrical, apically connecting to the anther through a mm long, laminar articulation; anthers mm long, mm wide, dorsifixed, bifid at the base and apex, latrorse; pistillode .5-3 mm long, mm in diam. at mid-height, ovoid, with no stigmatic branches differentiated. Pistillate flowers 4-5 mm long, 4 mm in diam. in late bud, borne throughout the rachillae, supported with a short stalk; sepals 3.8-4 mm long, 3.5-3.8 mm wide, circular-oblong, only shortly connate at the base, distinct, imbricate; petals 3.8-4 mm long, 3.6-3.8 mm wide, distinct, imbricate but open at the apex; staminodes 3-6 at one side of the gynoecium, shortly connate at the base, . long, mm wide at the base, acute at the apex; tooth-like; gynoecium syncarpous, 3.5-3.8 mm long, 3.5 mm in diam., globose, 3-locular ; stigmas 3, poorly differentiated, recurved, shortly papillate on the ventral side. Fruit globose, 3 mm in diam., bright red at maturity, with lateral stigmatic remains. (Basselinia moorei, Pintaud & F.W. Stauffer 0). Editing by edric.