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Phytelephas
Also called Ivory Palms, Ivory Nut Palms, Tagua Palms
Phytelephas is a genus of six dioecious palm species from Central and northwestern South America, known for the hard white seed endosperm called tagua or vegetable ivory. Commonly grown members are rarely cultivated as ornamentals outside their native range, and the key to growing them is warm, humid, bright conditions with well-drained soil.
Phytelephas is a genus containing six known species of dioecious palms (family Arecaceae), occurring from southern Panama along the Andes to Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, northwestern Brazil, and Peru. They are commonly known as ivory palms, ivory-nut palms or tagua palms (); the scientific name Phytelephas means "plant ivory" or more literally, "plant elephant". This and the first two of the common names refer to the very hard white endosperm of their seeds (tagua nuts or jarina seeds), which resembles elephant ivory.
Given trade restrictions in elephant ivory as well as animal welfare concerns, ivory palm endosperm is often used as a substitute for elephant ivory today, and traded under the names vegetable ivory, palm ivory, marfil-vegetal, corozo, tagua, or jarina. When dried out, it can be carved just like elephant ivory; it is often used for beads, buttons, figurines and jewelry, and can be dyed. More recently, palm ivory has been used in the production of bagpipes.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phytelephas 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.
