Talipot palm

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Talipot palm
Talipot palm flowering at Kerala, India
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Arecales
Family: Arecaceae
Genus: Corypha
Species:
C. umbraculifera
Binomial name
Corypha umbraculifera
Synonyms[1]
  • Bessia sanguinolenta Raf.
  • Corypha guineensis L.

Corypha umbraculifera, the talipot palm, is a species of palm native to eastern and southern India and Sri Lanka. It is also in Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and the Andaman Islands.[2]

It is one of the largest palms in the world. Individuals have reached up to 25 m (82 ft) with stems up to 1.3 m (4.25 ft) in diameter.[3] It is a fan palm (Arecaceae tribe Corypheae), with large leaves up to 5 m (16 ft) in diameter, with a leaf stem up to 4 m (13 ft), and up to 130 leaflets.

The talipot palm bears the largest inflorescence of any plant, 6-8 m (20-26 ft) long, consisting of one to several million small flowers borne on a branched stalk at the top of the trunk.[4] The talipot palm flowers only once,[5] when it is 30 to 80 years old. It takes about a year for the fruit to mature, producing thousands of round, yellow-green fruit 3-4 cm (1.2-1.6 in) in diameter, each containing a single seed. The plant dies after fruiting.[6][7]

References[change | change source]

  1. "The Plant List Corypha umbraculifera". Archived from the original on 2018-10-04. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  2. Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Corypha umbraculifera
  3. "Dominica Botanic Gardens". Archived from the original on 2007-02-18. Retrieved 2015-04-25.
  4. the titan arum, Amorphophallus titanum, from the family Araceae, has the largest unbranched inflorescence, and the species Rafflesia arnoldii has the world's largest single flower.
  5. is 'monocarpic'
  6. Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel. 1938. Sylva Telluriana. Mantis Synopt. New genera and species of trees and shrubs of North America p 13, Bessia sanguinolenta
  7. Linnaeus, Carl von. 1753. Species Plantarum 2: 1187, Corypha umbraculifera