''Korthalsia'' is a clustering
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
of
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
in the
palm
Palm most commonly refers to:
* Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand
* Palm plants, of family Arecaceae
**List of Arecaceae genera
* Several other plants known as "palm"
Palm or Palms may also refer to:
Music
* Palm (ba ...
family spread throughout
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. It is a highly specialized
rattan
Rattan, also spelled ratan, 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 closed-canopy old-growth tropical forests of ...
with some species known to have an intimate relationship with
ants
Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Creta ...
, hence the common name ant rattan.
[Uhl, Natalie W. and Dransfield, John (1987) ''Genera Palmarum - A classification of palms based on the work of Harold E. Moore''. Lawrence, Kansas: Allen Press. / ] High-climbing and armed with spines, the genus is named for the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
botanist
P. W. Korthals who first collected them from
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
Description
In young plants the trunks, petioles and rachises are covered in spines. Mature plants typically lose rachis and petiole spines but will retain trunks spines in its new growth. The suckering stems are small to mostly moderate and are among the few in the palm family that branch; among rattans it is the only one with splitting stems. The trunks are bare at the bottom but retain persistent leaf bases in its youngest parts; enlarged paper-like appendages, ocreas, form where the petioles meet the stem. The ocreas are usually grossly swollen and house ants.
[ Younger ]leaves
A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...
are undivided with the occasional bifid apice. A truly pinnate
Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...
leaf form comes in maturity and is accompanied by a barbed rachis extension which allows the palm to hook onto forest vegetation and climb to the canopy top where mature pinnae hang pendent. Also unique to the group are the rachis borne stalks, adapted for climbing, from which the leaflets emerge.
Sexually, they are hapaxanthic
Monocarpic plants are those that flower and set seeds only once, and then die.
The term is derived from Greek (''mono'', "single" + ''karpos'', "fruit" or "grain"), and was first used by Alphonse de Candolle. Other terms with the same meaning are ...
, another rare feature in palms, which results in the death of individual stems after flowering and fruiting has occurred. As hermaphrodite
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrate ...
s, the flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...
s are also uncommon with both male and female organs present in each. The inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
is short and thick, once or twice branched, with bisexual flowers hanging from long, furry stalks. Spherical to ovoid, the fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
is scaly and matures to orange, red or brown with one basally attached seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...
.
Fossilized pollen referable to this genus has been recovered in upper Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
deposits in northwest Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
; its long history, and its wide variety of unusual features may indicate its climbing habit evolved independently of other rattans.[
]Bees
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...
are observed visitors to the flowers while the Oriental pied hornbill
The oriental pied hornbill (''Anthracoceros albirostris'') is an Indo-Malayan pied hornbill, a large canopy-dwelling bird belonging to the family Bucerotidae. Two other common names for this species are Sunda pied hornbill (''convexus'') and Mala ...
, ''Anthracoceros albirostris convexus'' feeds on the fruit.[
]
Species
''Plants of the World Online
Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was launched in March 2017 with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known seed-bearing plants by ...
'' currently includes:[Plants of the World Online: ''Korthalsia'' Blume (retrieved 5 May 2021)]
/ref>
# '' Korthalsia angustifolia'' Blume
# '' Korthalsia bejaudii'' Gagnep. ex Humbert
# '' Korthalsia brassii'' Burret
# '' Korthalsia celebica'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia cheb'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia concolor'' Burret
# '' Korthalsia debilis'' Blume
# '' Korthalsia echinometra'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia ferox'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia flagellaris'' Miq.
# '' Korthalsia furcata'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia furtadoana'' J.Dransf.
# '' Korthalsia hispida'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia jala'' J.Dransf.
# '' Korthalsia junghuhnii'' Miq.
# '' Korthalsia laciniosa'' (Griff.) Mart.
# '' Korthalsia lanceolata'' J.Dransf.
# '' Korthalsia merrillii'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia minor'' A.J.Hend. & N.Q.Dung
# '' Korthalsia paucijuga'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia rigida'' Blume - type species
# '' Korthalsia robusta'' Blume
# '' Korthalsia rogersii'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia rostrata'' Blume
# '' Korthalsia scaphigeroides'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia scortechinii'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia tenuissima'' Becc.
# '' Korthalsia zippelii'' Blume
Distribution and habitat
The genus is concentrated around the Sunda Shelf's perhumid region with northern outliers in Indochina
Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
the Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...
and Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
and south to Sulawesi
Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
and New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
. They are confined to low land or hilly tropical forest
Tropical forests (a.k.a. jungle) are forested landscapes in tropical regions: ''i.e.'' land areas approximately bounded by the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing winds.
Some tropical fores ...
being conspicuously absent in montane
Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial ...
regions; some are narrowly limited to ultrabasic
Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are compos ...
rock while others are adept at colonizing cleared forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
s.
Relationship with ants
Ants of the genus '' Camponotus'' have an intimate relationship with several ''Korthalsia'' species, occupying chambers in the fibrous and swollen ocreas at the leaf bases. Here, the ants "farm" scale insects
Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the ...
which feed on the palm’s phloem cells, and produce a sweet dew the ants feed on. The ants also beat their abdomens against the dry leaf bases to create a precautionary alarm rattle before attacking en masse. The relationship seems to be mutual, protecting the palms from herbivores
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...
.[
The ]carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans
Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryot ...
''Nepenthes bicalcarata
''Nepenthes bicalcarata'' (; from Latin for "two-spurred"), also known as the fanged pitcher-plant,Phillipps, A. & A. Lamb 1996. ''Pitcher-Plants of Borneo''. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu. is a tropical pitcher plant ende ...
'' as well as '' Macaranga caladiifolia'' and '' Clerodendrum fistulosum'', grow alongside some ''Korthalsia''s in Borneo, and also feature swollen appendages in which ants nest. Other palm genera feature species known to harbour ants, including ''Laccosperma
''Laccosperma'' is a clustering genus of flowering plant in the family palm found in tropical Africa. Poorly studied and rarely cultivated, they are closely related to the genus '' Eremospatha'' and with it form a tribe in the ''Calameae'' charac ...
'', ''Eremospatha
''Eremospatha'' is a genus of climbing flowering plants in the palm family found in tropical Africa. These rattans are uncommon in cultivation and poorly understood by taxonomists;. Closely related to ''Laccosperma'', they differentiated by the ...
'' and ''Calamus
Calamus may refer to:
Botany and zoology
* ''Calamus'' (fish), a genus of fish in the family Sparidae
* ''Calamus'' (palm), a genus of rattan palms
* Calamus, the hollow shaft of a feather, also known as the quill
* '' Acorus calamus'', the swe ...
''.
Cultivation and uses
Their rarity in cultivation is likely due to their extreme spininess and their particular tropical needs.[ The stems and sheaths are made into rope, baskets and binding in house construction,][ but, unlike many other rattans they are irregularly knobby and scarred, which generally excludes their use in worked and polished furniture.][
]
References
External links
*
*
Fairchild Guide to Palms: ''Korthalsia''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q139791
Arecaceae genera
Calamoideae