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New Guinea Palmyra Palm

Borassus heineanus

New Guinea Palmyra Palm
Photo: The AAU Herbarium Database (License), CC BY 4.0
Family
Arecaceae (Palm family)
Grows as
Tree, Palm
Native range
N. New Guinea
Climate
wet tropical

About

Borassus heineanus is a species of a large solitary fan palm found only in northern New Guinea, in both Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, where it is threatened by habitat loss.

Also known as the New Guinea palmyra palm, B. heineanus grows up to 20 m tall with a robust trunk ringed with leaf scars; the old leaves remain attached to the trunk, but eventually fall cleanly. The blueish-green leaves are deeply dissected, up to 3.2 m across and the petioles have very sharp edges, which can give a nasty cut to the unwary. As with all Borassus species, B. heineanus is dioecious with male and female flowers on separate trees. The male flowers are 1.5 cm long and in semi-circular clusters enclosed within leathery bracts, forming massive catkin-like inflorescences. In contrast, the female flowers are golfball-sized, solitary and rest on the surface of the inflorescence axis.

Other Borassus plants

Palmyra palm · Borassus akeassii · Toddy palm · Borassus madagascariensis · Borassus palm

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Borassus heineanus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

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.

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