Lady palm (Rhapis subtilis siamensis)

Description

Clustered, dioecious, understory palm forming dense clumps 3-5 x 1-2 m. Stems often covered with persistent, fibrous sheaths, 6-15 mm in diam. without sheaths, 1.8-2.5 cm in diam. with sheaths, ringed, internodes 1-5 cm long, yellowish green. Leaves 15-22, spreading, palmately divided; sheath 5-12 cm long, long-open, margins fibrous-netted, fibers dark brown and in 3 layers, outermost coarsest, middle and innermost finer; petiole 30- 50 cm long; blade 15-28 x 25-50 cm, +/- semi- orbicular, divided 3/4 to nearly to base into (5-) 8-12 segments, these (12-) 18-20 (-24) x 0.5-5 cm, truncately praemorse, glossy green adaxially, paler abaxially, 1-4-nerved, 12-24 nerves total per blade, transverse veinlets conspicuous, close-set, 1-2 mm distant. Inflorescences 2-3, interfoliar, spreading; staminate 40 cm long, peduncle 20 cm long, flattened, 7 mm wide; prophyll 15 cm long, attached 9 cm above base of peduncle, tubular, obliquely open apically, thin-papery, reddish brown to brown with deciduous, twisted, slender, whitish hairs 2.54 mm long at apex and along both slightly winged margins, peduncular bract 1, similar to prophyll, 1-6 em long, attached 7 cm above base of prophyll and extending on to rachis 3-4 cm; rachis 1-3 cm long with 2 main branches, one with bract similar to peduncular bract and inserted 1.5 cm above branch base; rachillae 13-28, these 10-15 cm long, lower ones sometimes furcate; pistillate inflorescence similar to staminate only to 25 cm long and with 3-7 rachillae 10-12 cm long. Staminate flowers seen in young bud, 1.5 mm high; calyx 1 mm high, Culpular. Pistillate flowers in 2 spiraling rows, mostly solitary, 4-7 mm distant, placed on a pedicel 0.5 mm high, 4.5 x 1.5 mm, narrowly ovoid; calyx 1.5 x 1.5 mm, crown-like, prominently lobed, sepals connate in basal 1/2, broadly folded apically, acute, mucronate; corola 4.5 nun high, petals connate below and at tip initially, corolla opening by apical slits, petals valvate, later spreading apically, long-<lvate, acute, +/- fleshy; calyx and corolla prominently nerved when dry; staminodes 6; pistil 2 x I mm, short- columnar, angular, composed of separate carpels; stigma short with 3, poorly developed lobes. Fruits immature, 7.5 x 44.5 mm, ovoid, green; fruiting perianth an expanded, canpanulate tube 3 mm long, lobes spreading, staminodes just exceeding corolla. (A New Species from Vietnam by Dr. Andrew J. Henderson 2008), Editing by edric.