Large fruited nenga palm (Nenga pumila pachystachya)

Description

Their trunks may be clustering or solitary from 5 to 15 cm wide, rarely exceeding 5 m in height. The stems are ringed by distinct leaf scars and frequently supported by stilt roots. A distinct crownshaft is present in all but N. gajah, the petioles are well developed and bear pinnate leaves up to 2 m long. The leaflets are closely to widely spaced, regularly arranged, with one to several folds. They may be acute to acuminate, S-shaped to linear, the terminal pair usually obscurely lobed corresponding to the fold count; reaching 90 cm, they are usually deep green with a lighter underside. The rachis, petiole and crownshaft may be lightly to densely covered in hairy, brown tomentum. The inflorescence is branched to one order, rarely to two, erect or pendulous, and emerges below the crownshaft in all but N. gajah which emerges within the leaf crown. The fleshy male and female flowers share the same branches, proximally arranged in triads and distally in pairs or singles. They produce an obpyriform to ovoid fruit with a thin, fleshy mesocarp and a fibrous endocarp. Colored red, purple or black the fruit carries one seed. Editing by edric. Caespitose, slender to moderate palm with stems sometimes stilt-rooted at the base, about 3-5 m long, (2) 3-6 (8) cm in diam.; internodes to about 10 cm long, smooth, bright green to brown. Crownshaft elongate, cylindrical, about 35-80 cm long, only slightly swollen. Leaves to 7 in crown, leaf sheath about 25-60 cm long, pale green to greenish or yellowish-white; petiole about 4-50 cm long, to 1.5 cm in diam. Leaflets to 30 on each side of the rachis, often drying dull reddish-brown; basal leaflets 1 costate, about 25-40 X 0.5-1.0 cm, long-acuminate; middle leaflets 2-3 costate, rarely 4 or 5 costate, about 35-70 X 2-4 (5) cm, long-acuminate; terminal leaflet pair 3-6 costate, rarely to 10 costate, about 20-40 X (1.5) 2-2.5 (4) cm, acuminate or slightly toothed at tips, sometimes joined to 4 cm at the base along the rachis, rarely more. Inflorescence infrafoliar, pendulous; prophyll ensiform or lanceolate, about (18) 20-25 (70) X 1.5-3.0 cm, drying chestnut-brown, caducous; peduncle about 1.5-3.0 (4) X 0.4-1.3 cm, flattened, glabrous; peduncular bract triangular to narrowly triangular, acuminate, about 8-15 X 8-10 mm, membranous; rachilla 2-4, usually 3, rarely to 6, about (15) 20-35 (50) cm long, to 6 mm thick, each subtended by a membranous triangular bract to 10 mm long. Staminate flower triangular, asymmetric, flexuous; sepals subequal, linear-subulate or very narrowly lanceolate, dorsally carinate, very flexuous, about 9-13 (20) mm long; petals elliptic to lanceolate, acuminate, straight to subfalcate, much shorter than sepals, about 5-7 (9) X 2-2.5 mm; filaments 1-2 mm long; anthers erect, linear, about 1.52 mm long, sagittate at base; pistillode conical, minute. Pistillate flower ovoid to subglobose, shorter than the staminate flower; sepals about 3-4 mm X 4 mm, petals as the sepals, or sometimes only slightly smaller; ovary ovoid to spherical, to 1.5 mm X 2 mm; stigma distinctly 3-lobed; staminodes indistinct. Infructescence pendulous, branches densely covered with fruits. Fruit ripening brick-red, oblong to oblong-ovoid or ovoid-ellipsoid, about (2) 2.43 X 1-1.5 (1.8) cm, beaked, tipped with a prominent 3-lobed stigma to 2 mm high, the lobes erect; epicarp often drying with shallow dimples. Seed broadly ovoid, about 10-15 mm X 7-9 mm, acuminate to spinescent at tip, base rounded-truncate, shallowly concave-intruded.