''Hyphaene'' is a genus of
palms native to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
,
Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
, the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
, and the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
.
[Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families]
/ref>[Govaerts, R. & Dransfield, J. (2005). World Checklist of Palms: 1-223. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.]
The genus includes the Doum palm (''H. thebaica''). They are unusual among palms in having regular naturally branched trunks; most other palms are single-stemmed from the ground. In Swahili, it is called "koma".
Species
* '' Hyphaene compressa'' H.Wendl. - eastern Africa from Ethiopia to Mozambique
* '' Hyphaene coriacea'' Gaertn. - eastern Africa from South Africa; Madagascar; Juan de Nova Island
* '' Hyphaene dichotoma'' (J.White Dubl. ex Nimmo) Furtado - India, Sri Lanka
* '' Hyphaene guineensis'' Schumach. & Thonn. - western and central Africa from Liberia to Angola
* '' Hyphaene macrosperma'' H.Wendl. - Benin
* '' Hyphaene petersiana'' Klotzsch ex Mart. - southern and eastern Africa from South Africa to Tanzania
* '' Hyphaene reptans'' Becc. - Somalia, Kenya, Yemen
* '' Hyphaene thebaica'' (L.) Mart. - northeastern, central and western Africa from Egypt to Somalia and west to Senegal and Mauritania; Middle East (Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen)
References
Arecaceae genera
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