Dictyosperma album variety rubrum – Plant

Description

dictyosperma a. var. rubrum

Dictyosperma is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family found in the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues). The sole species, Dictyosperma album, is widely cultivated in the tropics but has been farmed to near extinction in its native habitat. It is commonly called princess palm or hurricane palm, the latter owing to its ability to withstand strong winds by easily shedding leaves.It is closely related to, and resembles, palms in the Archontophoenix genus.The genus is named from two Greek words meaning “net” and “seed” and the epithet is Latin for “white”, the common color of the crownshaft at the top of the trunk.

Description

Dictyosperma album is a medium-sized palm, generally reaching about 12 meters (37 feet) in height. A solitary, pinnate, monoecious (male and female flowers on the same inflorescence) palm, that develops a somewhat swollen crownshaft. The crownshafts range from green to grey to brown. The trunks have swollen bases, and the inflorescence looks like a horse tail, or rooster tail. The most distinguishing feature, is that the newly emergent leaves stand as vertical spears. In habitat, these palms can grow 40 feet tall. The ringed trunks are solitary at 15 cm. in diameter with a slight bulge at the base. The crownshaft is over a meter tall, swollen at the base, and covered in white wax— which has given the palm its epithet, album and small, matted brown hairs, producing a rounded leaf crown 4.5 m. wide and 3 m. tall. The 2.5 to 3 m. leaves are borne on short 30 cm. petioles; the arching leaflets are pointed at the apice, from 60 – 90 cm., dark green in color, and emerge from the rachis in a single plane. On flowering, they produce up to six inflorescences which ring the trunk below the crownshaft, branched to one order, with white to yellow flowers, which are male and female; both pistillate and staminate flowers have three sepals and three petals, the former being smaller than the latter. The ovoid fruit ripen to purple or black in color, containing one brown, ellipsoidal seed. Its small fruit is inedible. It is called the hurricane palm because it can suffer strong winds (usually) without being destroyed. This is quite a variable palm and propagation is by seed. Editing by edric. (Smithsonian Tropical Institute) Editing by edric.

Dictyosperma has three sub species, Dictyosperma album var. album, Dictyosperma album var. aureum, and Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum. Sold respectively, as Red, White, and Yellow.

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