''Acoelorraphe'' is a genus of palms with a single

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

''Acoelorraphe wrightii'', known as the Paurotis palm, Everglades palm or Madeira palm in EnglishWorld Checklist of Palms
''Acoelorrhaphe''
Germplasm Resources Information Network
''Acoelorrhaphe wrightii''
/ref>International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
''Acoelorrhaphe''
/ref> and cubas, tique, and papta in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

. The genus name is sometimes spelt as ''Acoelorrhaphe'' or ''Acoelorhaphe'', which are treated as

orthographical variant In biology, within the science of Nomenclature, scientific nomenclature, i.e. the naming of organisms, an orthographical variant (abbreviated orth. var.) in botany or an orthographic error in zoology, is a spelling mistake, typing mistake or writi ...

s by the

International Plant Names Index The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It inclu ...

Description

It is a small to moderately tall palm that grows in clusters to , rarely tall, with slender stems less than diameter. The leaves are

palmate The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets ...

(fan-shaped), with segments joined to each other for about half of their length, and are wide, light-green above, and silver underneath. The leaf petiole is long, and has orange, curved, sharp teeth along the edges. The flowers are minute, inconspicuous and greenish, with 6

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s. The trunk is covered with fibrous matting. The fruit is

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

-sized, starting orange and turning to black at maturity.''Flora of North America''
genus account
an
species account
/ref>Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan .

Taxonomy

The genus name is a combination of three

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

words meaning ''a-'' 'without', ' 'hollow', and ' 'needle', an allusion to the form of the fruit. The species is named after the American botanist Charles Wright.Grisebach, August H. R. (1866) Catalogus Plantarum Cubensium

Distribution and habitat

It is native to

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

, southeastern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

the Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

, and extreme southern

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

where it grows close to sea level in thin, rocky soil over limestone in wet areas and swamps of the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the K ...

Cultivation and uses

The Paurotis palm was formerly plentiful in the Florida

, but many plants were taken for the nursery trade. The palm is now protected in the wild by Florida law and its numbers are increasing again. Trees propagated from seed or by sawing apart the base of a cluster are available in nurseries. It is hardy to central and southern Florida and is cultivated as a landscape palm.Bush, Charles S. and Morton, Julia F. (1969) Native Trees and Plants for Florida Landscaping (pp.11-12). Department of Agriculture - State of Florida.

Gallery

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q16060543, from2=Q140088 Livistoninae Trees of the Caribbean Trees of Central America Trees of Northern America Trees of the Bahamas Trees of Colombia Monotypic Arecaceae genera Garden plants of North America Taxa named by August Grisebach Taxa named by Hermann Wendland