Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Bacaba Palm

Oenocarpus bacaba

Bacaba Palm
Photo: Agcandrei, CC BY-SA 4.0

Oenocarpus bacaba is a tall, economically important fruiting palm of the Amazon rainforest, grown for its edible fruit and palm heart. It needs warm, humid tropical conditions and well-drained sandy soil.

Family
Arecaceae (Palm family)
Grows as
Palm
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist but never waterlogged, especially for seedlings.
Soil
Well-drained sandy soil or a light, peaty mix.
Temperature
Around 25–30 °C; protect below 10 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
S. Trop. America
Climate
wet tropical

About

Oenocarpus bacaba is an economically important monoecious fruiting palm native to South America and the Amazon rainforest, which has edible fruits. This plant is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. It can reach up to 20–25 metres tall and 15–25 cm in diameter. It grows in well-drained sandy soils of the Amazon basin.

How to grow it

The tree grows in well-drained sandy soils of the Amazon basin. Form optimal germination, seeds should be planted at a depth of 2 cm in sand and vermiculite, and the temperature kept around 30 °C. Seeds should be kept moist rather than wet.

Other Oenocarpus plants

Oenocarpus bataua

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Oenocarpus bacaba 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…