Pritchardia woodii (Pritchardia woodii)

Description

Solitary, to 15 m tall; trunk 20-25 cm in diam., grayish, longitudinally grooved. Leaves 15-20, erect to spreading; leaf bases tapering to 25 cm wide distally; petioles 60-105 em long, 3.5-4.5 cm wide at blade, flat distally, toward base becoming convex adaxially and rounded abaxially, a faint stripe or rib extending adaxially throughout its length, margins sharp (sword-like), green with white to tan mealy indumentum abaxially on margins extending onto folds of blade, 5-44 proximally with aggregated ribbon-like appendages and only sparsely to moderately fibrous; blade 80-130 x 100-145 cm, subcircular, costapalmate for 20-35 cm, hastula semicircular, 0.5-8 cm high, 4 cm Wide, sharp, blade divided into 55-70 segments, middlelateral ones the largest, 85-115 x 5 cm, most proximal ones smallest, 20-45 x 0.5-1 cm, middle-lateral segments with tips free for 35 cm and bifid for 25 cm, most proximal segment with tips free for 20-25 cm and bifid for 12 cm, tips rigid, long-acuminate, glossy light green and glabrous adaxially except for white mealy indumentum on folds, similar abaxially but moderately dotted with faint, minute, irregularly shaped, tan to whitish lepidia. Inflorescences 5-7 interfoliar, 75-135 cm long, erect and shorter than or equaling petioles in flower, arching or nodding and exceeding petioles but shorter than leaf blades in fruit, composed of 1 or 2 long axes each terminating in a compact panicle; axes 65-120 cm long, slender, 1.8-3 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick at base with prophyll, 1-2 cm wide at apex and flattened, densely covered with grayish brown, short, velvety hairs under bracts; prophyll 25 x 7.5 cm, marescent at tip, flattened and bicarinate at base, 7-8 peduncular bracts, these 15-40 cm long, longest proximally, shortest distally, tightly sheathing proximally, expanded and boat-like distally, papery, brown, uppermost extending onto and partially concealing panicle, all bracts with scurfy, deciduous indumentum; panicle densely branched to 2 orders, 15-22 cm long, rachis 10-15 cm long, proximal branches with sub-peduncle to 2.5 cm long, sub-rachis 1.5 cm long, and with 5-8 rachillae, distal branches simple rachillae, 20-25 rachillae total, rachillae 8-13 cm long, 2 mm in diam. in flower, 3-3.5 mm in diam. in fruit, stiff, strongly flexuose, narrowly diverging (45 degrees or less) from rachis, densely covered in flower and fruit with short, velvety hairs, these white to grayish in flower, brownish in fruit. Flowers densely placed in 1 or 2 spiralling rows 3-5 mm apart, flowers 2 or 3 mm apart within a row, very strongly slanted or disposed distally, sometimes nearly reclining, in prominent clefts 1.5 mm deep, each cleft with a filamentous bracteole 4 or 5 mm long subtending the flower proximally; flowers at anthesis 9-10 x 7-10 mm, greenish yellow; calyx 5 mm high, coriaceous, greenish proximally, yellowish green distally, sepals imbricate at apex, mucronate; corolla tube about equaling calyx, lobes 6 x 3 mm, lanceolate, acute, light yellowish, prominently nerved adaxially, faintly nerved abaxially; staminal tube amber to brownish, exserted 1 mm above calyx, stamens spreading, borne on filaments 1 or 2 mm long, anthers 4 mm long, oblong, medifixed dorsally about 1/3 from their base, spreading flat; pistil 6-7 x 2 or 3 mm, spindle-shaped, ovary 2.5 x 2 mm, style 3.0-3.5 mm long, yellowish, exserted 2 or 3 mm above staminal ring, columnar, truncate apically. Fruits (not yet fully ripe) 45-50 x 5-46 40-45 mm, ovoid to ellipsoid, greenish, sometimes warty. (Hodel, D. 2007)/Palmweb.Pritchardia woodii is very similar to P. lanigera but the latter differs in the rachillae and rachis covered with woolly indumentum. It is also somewhat similar to P. arecina, which occurs not too far to the northeast and north in East Maui but in slightly wetter areas; P. arecina, however, differs in having leaf blades completely covered abaxially with lepidia and petioles with an abundance of fibers proximally. (Hodel, D. 2007)/Palmweb.