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

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

''Acoelorrhaphe wrightii'', known as the Paurotis palm, Everglades palm or Madeira palm in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

World 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 Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. It is native to

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, southeastern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, the Caribbean, Colombia,

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

, and extreme southern

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

where it grows in swamps and periodically flooded forests. 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 (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 stamens. The trunk is covered with fibrous matting. The fruit is

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

-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 . The genus name is often cited as ''Acoelorraphe'',USDA Plants Profile
''Acoelorraphe wrightii''
/ref> a spelling error to be corrected under the provisions of the

ICBN The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those "trad ...

. The genus name is a combination of three

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece 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 ...

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

Cultivation and uses

The Paurotis palm was formerly plentiful in the Florida

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands 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 Kissim ...

, 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

Image:Petiolespines.JPG, Petiole spines Image:Fruitcloseup.JPG, Fruit

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q140088 Livistoninae Trees of the Caribbean Trees of Central America Trees of the Southeastern United States Trees of the Bahamas Trees of Southeastern Mexico Trees of Veracruz Trees of Colombia Monotypic Arecaceae genera Garden plants of North America