Roystonea
Habit | palm-cycad
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Lifespan: | ⌛ | perennial |
Features: | ✓ | evergreen, foliage |
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Roystonea is a genus of 10 species of monoecious palms, native to the Caribbean Islands, and the adjacent coasts of Florida, Central and South America. Commonly known as the royal palms, the genus was named for Roy Stone, a U.S. Army engineer. It contains some of the most recognizable and commonly cultivated palms in tropical and subtropical regions.
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Roystonea is a genus of large, unarmed, single-stemmed palms with pinnate leaves. The large stature and striking appearance of a Roystonea palm makes it a notable aspect of the landscape. The stems, which were compared to stone columns by Louis and Elizabeth Agassiz in 1868, are smooth and columnar, although the trunks of R. altissima and R. maisiana are more slender than those of typical royal palms. Stems often are swollen and bulging along portions of their length, which may reflect years where growing conditions were better or worse than average. Leaf scars are often prominent along the stem, especially in young, rapidly-growing individuals. Stem colour ranges from grey-white to grey-brown except in R. violacea which have violet-brown or mauve stems. The largest royal palm, R. oleracea, reaches heights of 40 m , but most species are in the 15 to 20 m range.[1]
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Roystonea leaves consist of a sheathing leaf base, a petiole, and a rachis. The leaf base forms a distinctive green sheath around the uppermost portion of the trunk. Known as the crownshaft, this sheath extends 1.4 - 2 m down the trunk. The petiole connects the lead base with the rachis. Zona only reported petiole lengths for three of the 10 species, ranging from 20 to 100 cm. The rachis is pinnately divided and ranges from 3.2 to 5.8 m long. The leaf segments themselves range in length from 60 to 79 cm in R. altissima up to as much as 132 cm in R. lenis. They are arranged in two or three planes along the rachis. Many authors have reported that the leaves R. oleracea are arranged in a single plane, but American botanist Scott Zona reported that this is not the case.[1]
These plants have the ability to easily release their leaves in strong winds, a supposed adaption serving to prevent toppling during hurricanes. Inflorescences occur beneath the crownshaft, emerging from a narrow, horn-shaped bract. The flowers on the branched panicles are usually white, unisexual, and contain both sexes. The fruit is an oblong or globose drupe 1-2 cm long and deep purple when ripe.[2] Some species so closely resemble one another that scientific differentiation is by inflorescence detail; flower size, color, etc.
ExpandRead about Roystonea in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Cultivation
Propagation
Pests and diseases
Species
- Roystonea altissima (Mill.) H.E.Moore
- Roystonea borinquena O.F.Cook
- Roystonea dunlapiana P.H.Allen
- Roystonea lenis León
- Roystonea maisiana (L.H.Bailey) Zona
- Roystonea oleracea (Jacq.) O.F.Cook
- Roystonea princeps (Becc.) Burret
- Roystonea regia (Kunth) O.F.Cook
- Roystonea stellata León
- Roystonea violacea León
Gallery
References
- ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 Zona, Scott (December 1996). "Roystonea (Arecaceae: Arecoideae)". Flora Neotropica 71: 1–35.
- ↑ Riffle, Robert L. and Craft, Paul (2003) An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms. Portland: Timber Press. (Page 441) ISBN 0881925586 / ISBN 978-0881925586
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Roystonea. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Roystonea QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)