Climbing palms are genera in the family

Arecaceae The Arecaceae () is a family (biology), family of perennial plant, perennial, flowering plants in the Monocotyledon, monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbing palm, climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly k ...

that grow as

liana A liana is a long-Plant stem, stemmed Woody plant, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the Canopy (biology), canopy in search of direct sunlight. T ...

s. "Initially erect, the slender stems seek out trees for support and climb up into the forest canopy by means of recurved hooks and spines growing on the stem, leaves and inflorescences. In all climbing palms the leaves are pinnate and grow along the stem instead of forming a dense crown. The stems of climbing palms, more often referred to as canes, are solid in contrast to

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

poles which are almost always hollow."(c) FAO 1995. Tropical Palms. Introduction. ''NON-WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS'' 10 http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0451E/X0451e03.htm "The majority of climbing palms are also clumping palms nd sympodial/nowiki>, sending out new shoots from elow ground as suckers/nowiki>." "About 600 species of palms in 6/nowiki> genera have a climbing growth habit. Most noteworthy is the genus '' Calamus''--the largest genus in the palm family with approximately 350 described species--source of nearly all commercial

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan (from Malay language, Malay: ''rotan''), is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the clos ...

." The habit of "climbing palm" is one of the terms used for referring to the diversity of habits of palm stems, the rest are "arborescent palms" or tree palms, "shrub palms" and "acaulescent palms", as defined in Dransfield (1978 cited in Kubitzki ed. 1998,Arecaceae in: Kubitzki (ed 1998) in: ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' see also Uhl & Dransfield 1987 ''Genera Palmarum'').

Gallery

File:Thatiyan Cuural (Malayalam- തടിയന്‍ ചൂരല്‍) (5661614812).jpg , '' Calamus thwaitesii'' which is a species of climbing palm climbing a tree

Diversity

Most climbing palms are the ones called rattan. Rattans are closely related and all belong to the family

Calamoideae Calamoideae is a subfamily of flowering plant in the palm family found throughout Central America, South America, Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia and Australia. It is represented by 21 genera - containing nearly a quarter of all species i ...

, most of them in the tribe

Calameae CalameaeKunth CS ex Lecoq & Juillet (1831) ''Dictionnaire raisonne des termes de botanique'' 98. is a palm tree tribe in the subfamily Calamoideae. The type genus is ''Calamus (palm), Calamus'' and many of its members are rattans. Genera * ''C ...

. The genera: '' Calamus'', principally, also '' Korthalsia'', '' Plectocomia'', '' Plectocomiopsis'', '' Myrialepis'', '' Laccosperma'' (syn. ''Ancistrophyllum''), '' Eremospatha'' and '' Oncocalamus''.Terry C.H. Sunderland and John Dransfield. Species Profiles. Ratans. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/y2783e/y2783e05.htm All rattans belong to the Old World. In the New World there are 2 genera with climbing representatives, '' Chamaedorea'' (subfamily Ceroxyloxideae, tribe Hyophorbeae) and '' Desmoncus'' (subfamily Arecoideae, tribe Cocoseae), the last one is utilized and commercialized much in the same way as rattans. '' Dypsis scandens'' (subfamily Arecoideae, tribe Areceae) is a climbing palm in Madagascar.

References

Bibliography

* * * , in {{refend Arecaceae Plants by habit

Gallery

Diversity

See also

References

Bibliography