Palm Family (Arecaceae)

Palms are second to the grasses in

economic importance. In the tropics,
they may be a source of food, clothing,
shelter, and fuel. The palms, numbering
about 3,500 species, mostly consist of
trees. Shrubs and vines are also
represented.
Lodoicea maldivica has the world’s largest seed, a “double coconut,” made up
of a two-lobed drupe. Raphia fainifera has the largest flowering plant leaf, up
to twenty meters long. Palms have a single apical bud, called “heart of
palm.” When it dies or is removed, the plant dies.
Tree-like forms have an unbranched trunk with a terminal crown of leaves,
commonly called “fronds,” which emerge one at a time from the apical bud.
Lignin, deposited in cell walls of stem (trunk) tissues provides sturdiness.
As monocotyledons, palms have no vascular tissue in the stem; so there is
no secondary growth. The leafy frond is made up a blade, a petiole, and a
sheathing base. Blade types are: fan-shaped with feather-like (pinnate) veins,
as in Lodoicea (a); fanshaped with veins arising from one point (palmate), as
in Sabal (b); feather-shaped (pinnately compound), as in Chamaedorea (c); or
feather-shaped, twice divided (bipinnately compound) as in Caryota.
Regardless of shape, the young leaf (e) looks like a rod with a length-wise
strip that peels down like a zipper, to free the one to many leaflets that
unfold like a fan. The leaf petiole may be smooth or toothed on its margin.
Small flowers are usually formed in loose clusters, called panicles (f), which
have one or more bracts at the base.
Commonly, the plants have separate male and female flowers (unisexual) on
the same plant (monoecious), or on separate plants (dioecious), while others
have flowers with both male and female parts within one flower (bisexual).
Flower parts are usually in 3’s, being separate or fused. Flowers are wind-,
insect- or self-pollinated.
Usually the fruit has one seed and is a berry or drupe type. The outside wall
of the fruit can be fleshy, fibrous or leathery. Storage tissue (endospem)
within the seed is oily or fatty rather than starchy. In coconuts (Cocos
nucifer), it is liquid encased within the solid coconut “meat” that makes up
the solid part of the endosperm.
Of interest... economic plants: Areca catechu (betel nut palm), Calamus and
Caemonorops (rattan cane), Cocos nucifera (coconut palm), Copernicia
(carnauba wax), Elaeis guineesis (oil palm), Metroxylon (sago palm), Phoenix
dactylifera (date palm), Paphia pendunculata (raffia, used as twine to tie tall
plants to supports); ornamentals: Arecastrum (queen palm), Arenga pinnata
(sugar palm), Caryota mitis (fishtail palm), Chamaedorea elegans (parlor palm),
Chamaerops (European fan palm), Chrysalidocarpus (Madagascar feather
palm), Cocothrinax argentea (silver palm), Erythea spp. (Mexican fan palms),
Howeia spp. (curly palm, sentry palm, flat palm), Jubaea spectabilis (coquitos
palm), Livistona spp. (fan palms), Metroxylon (sago palm), Rhapidophyllum
(needle palm), Rhapis (lady palm), Roystonea regia (royal palm), Sabal palmetto
(cabbage palmetto), Serenoa (saw-palmetto), Trachycarpus fortunei (Chinese
windmill palm), Thrinax (peaberry palm), Washingtonia filifera (sentinel
palm); food: heart-of-palm; building materials: large palm leaves are used as
“thatch” on roofs of houses/huts in the tropics.

Summarized by SUON Sonica