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Astrocaryum standleyanum
Black palm (Astrocaryum standleyanum) is a spiny, single-trunked palm of wet tropical forests from Costa Rica to Ecuador, most common around central Panama. It is a tall forest tree, not a plant for small gardens, and its key feature is dense black spines on the trunk and leaves.
Astrocaryum standleyanum, commonly known as the black palm or chunga, is a species of palm native to Central and South America, where its distribution extends from Costa Rica to Ecuador. It is most common in central Panama, even becoming abundant in the tropical forests around the Panama Canal, but in general it is not a common plant.
The fruit is attractive to many species of animals, such as agoutis, squirrels, spiny rats, capuchins, opossums, pacas, coatis, peccaries, and tapeti rabbits. Some animals can navigate the spines or reach the fruit by jumping from other trees, as the capuchin does, but most take the fallen fruits on the ground. It has been suggested that the fruit was once dispersed in addition to current living species by now-extinct large animals, such as gomphotheres. Animals disperse the seeds. The Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) plays an important role in the life cycle of the plant. It is one of the most important food sources for this species of agouti. It collects the fruits and caches the seeds, burying them in the soil. It is constantly interested in its caches and often digs up the seeds to rebury them elsewhere. One agouti will commonly rob the cache of another, transporting the seeds to new locations. Researchers tracking cached seeds saw one seed moved 36 times before being eaten. The behavior is known as scatter-hoarding.
Astrocaryum aculeatissimum · Acuyuru Plam · Astrocaryum chambira · Astrocaryum mexicanum · Astrocaryum murumuru · Astrocaryum
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Astrocaryum standleyanum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
