Bismarck palm (Bismarckia nobilis)
Description
Bismarckia is a monotypic palm genus named for the first chancellor of the German Empire, Prince Otto von Bismarck and the epithet for its only species, Bismarckia nobilis, comes from Latin for 'noble'.r, to put it another way, there's only one species, but what a species!B. nobilis grows from solitary trunks, gray to tan in color, which show ringed indentations from old leaf bases. Trunks are 30 to 45 cm in diameter, slightly bulging at the base, and free of leaf bases in all but its youngest parts. In their natural habitat they can reach above 25 meters in height but usually get no taller than 12 m in cultivation. The nearly rounded leaves are enormous in maturity, over 3 m wide, and are deeply-divided into 20 or more stiff segments. The leaves are costapalmate, producing a wedge-shaped hastula where the blade and petiole meet. Petioles are 2-3 m, slightly armed, and are covered in a white, waxy material as well as cinnamon-colored scales; the nearly-spherical leaf crown is 7.5 m wide and 6 m tall. Most cultivated Bismarckias feature silver-blue foliage although a green leaf variety exists (which is less hardy to cold). These palms are dioecious and produce pendent inflorescences of small brown flowers which, in female plants, mature to a brown ovoid drupe, each containing a single seed.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum:
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Class: Liliopsida
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Order: Arecales
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Family: Arecaceae
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Genus: Bismarckia
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