Calamus castaneus
Calamus (KAL-ah-muhs) castaneus (cahs-tahn-EH-uhs) | |||||||
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Perak, Malaysia. Photo by Dr. John Dransfield, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Palmweb. | |||||||
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Contents
Habitat and Distribution
Malaya, Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, Trengganu, Pahang, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Malacca, Johore. South Thailand, North Sumatra.
Description
Clustering undergrowth acaulescent palm showing no tendency to climb. Stem decumbent, or erect, or subterranean, rarely more than 1.5 m tall, by up to 8 cm in diameter without sheaths, with very crowded nodes. Noflagellum; no cirrus. Leaves up to about 4 m long with petiole up to 1.5 m or more. Sheath and petiole dull green armed with flattened grey, yellow-based spines, and grey-brown indumentum; spines arranged in groups, very variable in length from 2 mm to 60 mm; ligule present around leaf sheath mouth, armed with small spines. Leaflets about 30-40 on each side of the rachis, to 50 cm long by 3 cm wide, regular, rather distant dark shiny green above, dull dirty grey indumentose below, armed with scattered black bristles on lower 3 nerves, on margins and sometimes on upper surface. Inflorescences borne low on the leaf sheath the origin obscured by the leaf sheath, up to about 45 cm. Female inflorescence with up to about 15 rather stiff crowded rachillae covered with dense bracts, in fruit elongating. Flowers with pinkish to crimson bracts and petals in bud, becoming pale at flower opening. Male inflorescence more highly branched, laxer and sinuose. Ripe fruit to 25 mm long by to 18 mm wide, oblong, with pronounced beak, rich chestnut brown in colour covered in 18-27 vertical rows of scales. Endosperm homogeneous. Seedling leaf with 6 leaflets, dark green above, grey indumentose below. (J. Dransfield, A Manual of the rattans of the Malay Peninsula. Malayan Forest Records 29.. 1979)/Palmweb. Editing by edric.
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Clustering acaulescent non-climbing palm of the forest undergrowth. Stem usually completely subterranean or briefly erect or prostrate, to 1.5 m long, without sheaths to 8 cm in diam., with sheaths to 12 cm in diam., internodes very short, rarely exceeding 3 cm long. Leaf ecirrate to 4 m long; sheaths tubular within the bud but soon splitting and becoming open, dull green, armed with flattened grey, yellow-based grouped spines variable in length, 0.2–8 cm; tattered bristly ligule present on the margins of the sheath mouth; flagellum absent; petiole up to 2.5 m long, distally rounded in cross section, armed as the sheath; rachis to 5 m long; leaflets about 30–40 on each side of the rachis, regularly arranged, linear-lanceolate, the largest to 50 x 3 cm, shining dark green adaxially, abaxially covered with a layer of dirty-grey indumentum, armed with 3 rows of black bristles abaxially and sometimes on main vein adaxially. Inflorescences to 45 cm long, borne low down on the leaf sheaths, their bases usually obscured by spines and debris, male and female superficially similar, the male branched to 3 orders, the female to 2 orders; male rachillae to 4 cm long, about 0.4 cm diam., bearing distichous bracts, pinkish or crimson when newly emerged; female rachillae fewer and longer, to 12 cm long, 0.5 cm in diam., bracts similarly coloured to the male. Mature fruit ellipsoid, to 2.5 x 1.8 cm, strongly beaked, covered in 18–27 vertical rows of chestnut brown scales. Seed about 1.8 x 1.2 cm; endosperm homogeneous. Seedling leaf with 6 leaflets, dark green adaxially, abaxially covered with grey indumentum. (Palms of Thailand) "Cucor" is one of the commonest palms in Malaya growing throughout the Peninsula except for Perlis. It can be found from near sea-level up to about 800 m in the mountains. It is not found in peat swamp or mangrove forest, and it seems to prefer lower hillslopes and stream sides, though in many places it will grow far from running water on level ground; it does appear to avoid sharply-drained ridgetop soils. "Cucor" is very easily recognised by its non-climbing habit, by the grey spines with yellowish bases and by the leaflets dirty-grey indumentose below. It might be confused with C. lobbianus but the latter has much smaller leaves, strikingly chalky-white rather than dull grey below, and the inflorescences are quite different. I can see no satisfactory difference between var. griffithianus and var. castaneus and so have included the former in the latter. The only difference (the number of rows of scales) is unsatisfactory and the variation found in the field is without major distinctions. (J. Dransfield, A Manual of the rattans of the Malay Peninsula. Malayan Forest Records 29.. 1979)/Palmweb. |
Culture
Cold Hardiness Zone: 10a
Comments and Curiosities
Etymology: Castaneus - chestnut-coloured, referring to the fruit colour of the 'Cucor' palm.
Uses: Cane too short to be used. Immature fruit used as cough medicine by "Orang Temuan". (J. Dransfield, A Manual of the rattans of the Malay Peninsula. Malayan Forest Records 29.. 1979)/Palmweb.
External Links
- Glossary of Palm Terms
- MODERN BOTANICAL LATIN
- "Just To Be Clear"
- http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/b2012-058#.VLDwEyvF_To
- http://cybertaxonomy.eu/media/palmae/protologe/palm_tc_29411_P.pdf
References
Phonetic spelling of Latin names by edric.
Special thanks to Geoff Stein, (Palmbob) for his hundreds of photos.
Special thanks to Palmweb.org, Dr. John Dransfield, Dr. Bill Baker & team, for their volumes of information and photos.
Glossary of Palm Terms; Based on the glossary in Dransfield, J., N.W. Uhl, C.B. Asmussen-Lange, W.J. Baker, M.M. Harley & C.E. Lewis. 2008. Genera Palmarum - Evolution and Classification of the Palms. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. All images copyright of the artists and photographers (see images for credits).
J. Dransfield, A Manual of the rattans of the Malay Peninsula. Malayan Forest Records 29.. 1979
Many Special Thanks to Ed Vaile for his long hours of tireless editing and numerous contributions.