Brahea salvadorensis

Brahea (brah-HEH-ah) salvadorensis (sal-vah-dor-EN-sis)
Honduras.
Scientific Classification
Genus: Brahea (brah-HEH-ah) Species: salvadorensis (sal-vah-dor-EN-sis)
Synonyms
None set.
Native Continent
America
Morphology
Habit: Solitary Leaf type: Palmately compound
Culture
Survivability index
Common names
None.

Habitat and Distribution

Brahea salvadorensis is found in El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In open forest.

Near Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Jan. 1994. Photo by Dr. Scott Zona

It is a rare species found in dry rocky slopes, sometimes in pine - oak, north central area at an altitude of 800-1600 meters in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Flowering occurs in August. (From the spanish).

Description

Hight: To 20 Ft. Spread: To 12 Ft. Leaf detail: Palmately compound, Finely fingered, light green, with drooping tips. Requirements: Full sun when mature, water sparingly, drought tolerant, frost tolerant. Believed to be synonymous with B dulcis.

Palms are erect, solitary, strong, medium-sized, armed, often in small colonies, with columnar stems, up to 6 m high or frequently acaulescent, naked or covered down crown with the remains of leaf sheaths deciduous; hermaphrodite plants. Leaves with blade nearly orbicular, very shortly side-webbed with 70 segments deeply bifid, segments 85 cm long and 1-2 cm wide, lower surface tomentose initially lepidote peltado-fimbriated scaly deciduous, major nerves initially floccose-furfuraceous , sheath unarmed, glabrous, reddish, soft fiber, divided into a network of fibers, petiole long, slightly convex adaxially, convex abaxially irregularly initially furfuraceous-lanado-lepidote, armed with sharp and incurved marginal teeth, extending to the base of leaf, thickly membranous ligule on the adaxial side. Inflorescences of 100-150 cm long, interfoliar, equaling or exceeding the leaves, erect or arched, thin, immediately divided into series of branching units hanging, tubular bracts ca 7 rigid, red, opening obliquely at the apex, sheathing the peduncle and the base of the primary branches, primary branches 70 cm long; rachillas 8-18 cm long, white-tomentose, glabrescent when in fruit, flowers 5-6 mm long, in clusters of (1 -) 2 bracteolados pulvinules -3 on slightly elevated, free sepals, margins glabrous, sparsely pubescent on the lower half without scarious margins, free petals, valvate, reflexed at anthesis, glabrous or with a tuft of hairs at the base, dorsally subtomentosos or glabrous, stamens 6. Fruit subglobose, blackish subapical stigmatic residue, exocarp smooth when mature, pubescent when young, fleshy mesocarp, endocarp thin, often attached to the seed, seed globose or subglobose, endosperm homogeneous, with deep intrusions, lateral embryo, eofilo simple. (From the spanish). Editing by edric.

Culture

Sunny, well drained position. Drought and frost tolerant. Cold Hardiness Zone: 9a

Comments and Curiosities

"This is one of the larger-leaved Braheas, and one that was only recently (2006?) officially included in the Kew checklist of palms ... until then, many researchers had lumped it into Brahea dulcis. It also has uniquely fuzzy leaves on the underside (well, nearly uniquely- Brahea pimo, a MUCH shorter palm, has fuzzy leaves, too). Only specimen I have ever seen is an old one at the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena California." (Geoff Stein)