Sudan raphia palm

Description

Monoecious palm, often clustering; trunk 2–3 (–10) m tall, stout, with irregular rings and covered with persistent leaf bases. Leaves pinnate, erect, up to 12 m long, sheathing at the base, glaucous-green; petiole relatively short, unarmed; rachis stout, unarmed, orange-yellow, later grey; leaflets linear-lanceolate, 50–75 cm long, stiff, single-fold, acuminate at the apex, lower surface waxy, margins and back of the midvein armed with straight, black spines about 5 mm long. Inflorescence axillary, up to 2.5 m long, dense, branched to 2 orders; first order branches about 20 cm long, with large, papery bracts holding flowering branchlets 3–4 cm long. Flowers unisexual; male flowers with calyx tubular and 3-lobed, petals long and narrow, sharply pointed, not thickened near the tip, stamens 10–12(–18), inserted on the corolla, filaments fused for half their length; female flowers with thin outer bracteole enclosing the calyx and corolla, and inner bracteole about half as long as calyx, calyx 3-lobed, slightly fimbriate, corolla cup-shaped for half its length, with 3 lobes, staminodes 9 (–18), in a short ring, ovary superior. Fruit obovoid, 5–8 cm × about 4.5 cm, with a blunt beak 4–8 mm long, covered with scales in (8–) 9–10 (–11) longitudinal rows; scales reddish or yellowish, with brown margins; mesocarp yellow. Seed ovoid, testa wrinkled and warty. (PROTA), Editing by edric.