Geonoma leptospadix (Geonoma leptospadix)

Description

Small palm, 1.5 (0.5-3.0) m tall; stems 0.8 (0.4-2.0) m tall, 0.7 (0.5-0.9) cm in diameter, solitary or clustered, canelike; internodes 0.9 (0.5-1.6) cm long, yellowish and smooth. Leaves 13 (10-17) per stem, undivided or rarely irregularly pinnate, not plicate, bases of blades running diagonally into the rachis; sheaths 9.0 (7.0-12.0) cm long; petioles 6.6 (2.5-13.0) cm long, drying green or yellowish; rachis 32.0 (21.8-43.0) cm long, 2.7 (1.5-4.3) mm in diameter; veins not raised or slightly raised and triangular in cross-section adaxially; pinnae 1 (1-3) per side of rachis; basal pinna length and width not applicable, forming an angle 20(10-28)° with the rachis; apical pinna 11.4 (6.3-15.3) cm long, width not applicable, forming an angle of 26(20-35)° with the rachis. Inflorescences branched 1 order; prophylls and peduncular bracts not ribbed with elongate, unbranched fibers, flattened, persistent; prophylls 5.9 (4.3?-10.4) cm long, not short and asymmetrically apiculate, the surfaces not ridged, without unequally wide ridges; peduncular bracts 5.0 (3.7-6.4) cm long, well-developed, inserted 0.9 (0.3-2.3) cm above the prophyll; peduncles 13.7 (6.5-20.3) cm long, 2.4 (1.4-3.3) mm in diameter; rachillae 4 (2-6), 13.7 (6.5-28.0) cm long, 1.3 (0.9-1.8) mm in diameter, the surfaces without spiky, fibrous projections or ridges, drying brown, with faint to pronounced, short, transverse ridges, not filiform and not narrowed between the flower pits; flower pits spirally arranged, glabrous internally; proximal lips without a central notch before anthesis, not recurved after anthesis, hood-shaped at anthesis, sometimes splitting postanthesis; proximal and distal lips drying the same color as the rachillae, not joined to form a raised cupule, the proximal lip margins overlapping the distal lip margins; distal lips well-developed; staminate and pistillate petals not emergent, not valvate throughout; staminate flowers deciduous after anthesis; stamens 6; thecae diverging at anthesis, inserted almost directly onto the filament apices, the connectives bifid but scarcely developed; anthers short and curled over at anthesis; non-fertilized pistillate flowers deciduous after anthesis; staminodial tubes crenulate or shallowly lobed at the apex, when lobed the lobes not spreading at anthesis nor acuminate, those of non-fertilized pistillate flowers not projecting and persistent after anthesis; fruits 8.0 (7.0-9.4) mm long, 7.2 (6.0-7.8) mm in diameter, the bases without a prominent stipe, the apices not conical, the surfaces not splitting at maturity, without fibers emerging, not bumpy and not apiculate; locular epidermis without operculum, smooth, without pores. (Henderson, A.J. (2011) A revision of Geonoma. Phytotaxa 17: 1-271.)/Palmweb. Editing by edric.