Ptychosperma waitianum (Ptychosperma waitianum)

Description

A very small palm with solitary or clustering stems 1.2-2.0 cm in diam, to 5 m. high, internodes farinose and brown-lepidotepunctate when young. Leaf sheath l8-21 cm long with a ligular appendage 5-7 cm. long at the apex opposite the petiole, sheath surface minutely lepidote-punctate and at the apex coarsely dark-furfuraceous; petiole 25-33 cm long, glabrous but sparsely and minutely puncticulate; rachis 40- 47 cm long bearing 8-9 pinnae on each side; pinnae at middle of leaf broadly cuneate and deeply concave-indentate, 11.5 cm. long on the midrib, I9-21 cm long along the margins, the upper margin somewhat more attenuated than the lower, abaxial surface near the base with numerous, elongate, twisted, membranous scales on the midnerve and prominent secondary nerves; apical pinnae 4-S-costate, to 25 cm long and ll cm wide at apex. Inflorescence 23 cm long, simply branched or the lowest one or two branches furcate or once-branched with about 3 rachillae; bracts subtending the lower branches well developed and conspicuous, though variable in size; peduncle flattened, 2 cm long, 7 mm wide and 3 mm thick; rachillae 5-12, 16-18 cm long and about 2 mm thick; all axes densely dark-furfuraceous at anthesis (Essig 710121-1), red, nearly glabrous in fruit but remaining thickly dark-furfuraceous in protected parts. Flowers densely dark-lepidotel staminate flowers 6-7 mm long, sepals 2- 2.5 mm high, densely red-black furfuraceous with deciduous branched hairs, sometimes becoming only darklepidote with ciliate margins, petals with prominent red-brown membranous scales outside, yellow and glabrous inside, stamens about 20, equalling the slender pistillode in length; pistillaie buds at staminate anthesis about 3.5 mm high, red-brown lepidote, the perianth moderately lepidote in fruit, sepals then about 3 mm high, petals about 8 mm high. Mature fruit "black, soft and fleshy," 1.7-I.9 cm long when dry, rostrum 2.5 mm high and 2.5 mm thick at the base, staminodes 3-5, narrow and pointed or sometimes laterally fused into broader segments within the perianth; seed shallowly S-grooved, 6 mm. in diam, endosperm homogeneous.