''Schippia concolor'', the mountain pimento or silver pimeto, is a medium-sized

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 ...

species that is native to

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

and

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. Named for its discoverer, Australian botanist William A. Schipp, the species is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

. It is the sole species in the genus ''Schippia''.

Description

''Schippia concolor'' is a medium-sized, single-stemmed palm with fan-shaped (or palmate) leaves. The stem, which is tall and in diameter, is usually covered by the remains of old, dead leaves (but in areas where fires are frequent the corky bark of the stem may be exposed throughout the length of the stem). Individuals bear six to 15 leaves which consist of a petiole and a roughly circular leaf blade which is about in diameter divided into 30 leaflets. The fruit are white, spherical and up to in diameter.

Taxonomy

''Schippia'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus—it includes only a single species, ''S. concolor''. In the first edition of ''

Genera Palmarum ''Genera Palmarum'' is a botany reference book that gives a detailed overview of the systematic biology of the palm family ( Arecaceae). The first edition of ''Genera Palmarum'' was published in 1987. The second edition was published in 2008, with ...

'' (1987),

Natalie Uhl Natalie Whitford Uhl (1919–2017) was an American botanistIPNI: Natalie Whitf ...

and

John Dransfield John Dransfield (born 1945) is an honorary research fellow and former head of palm research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom, as well as being an authority on the phylogenetic classification of palms. Dransfield has written or ...

placed the genus ''Schippia'' in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Coryphoideae The Coryphoideae is one of five subfamilies in the palm family, Arecaceae. It contains all of the genera with palmate leaves, excepting ''Mauritia'', ''Mauritiella'' and ''Lepidocaryum,'' all of subfamily Calamoideae, tribe Lepidocaryeae, subtr ...

, the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

Corypheae Corypheae is a tribe of palm trees in the subfamily Coryphoideae. In previous classifications, tribe Corypheae included four subtribes: Coryphinae, Livistoninae, Thrinacinae and Sabalinae, but recent phylogenetic studies have led to the genera ...

and the subtribe Thrinacinae Subsequent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis showed that the

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

and

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

members of the Thrinacinae are not closely related. As a consequence of this, ''Schippia'' and related genera have been placed in their own tribe,

Cryosophileae Cryosophileae is a tribe of palms in the subfamily Coryphoideae. The tribe ranges from southern South America, through Central America, into Mexico and the Caribbean. It includes New World genera formerly included in the tribe Thrinacinae, wh ...

. Within this tribe, ''Schippia'' appears to be most closely related to the genus ''

Cryosophila ''Cryosophila'' is a genus of medium-sized fan palms that range from central Mexico to northern Colombia. Species in the genus can be readily distinguished from related genera by their distinctive downward-pointing spines on the stem, which ar ...

''. The species was discovered by Australian botanist William A. Schipp in 1932 and described by German taxonomist

Max Burret Karl Ewald Maximilian Burret, commonly known as Max Burret (6 June 1883 – 19 September 1964) was a German botanist. Burret was born in Saffig near Andernach in the Prussian Rhine Province. He originally studied law at Lausanne and Munic ...

in 1933. Burret named the genus in honour of Schipp. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

upon which the species (and the genus) was based, was Schipp's collection, assigned the collection number ''S367''. This specimen was destroyed when the Berlin Herbarium was bombed during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Reproduction and growth

''Schippia concolor'' exhibit the unusual strategy of transferring all stored resources from the seed to the seedling before any shoot growth occurs. In most plants, the seedling remains attached to the seed, gradually using the stored resources for growth, until those resources are exhausted. At that point, the connection withers, detaching the remains of the seed. Eight to nine days after the seed is hydrated, the

cotyledon A cotyledon (; ; ; , gen. (), ) is a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant, and is defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first to appear from a germinating seed." The numb ...

expands, pushes out of the seed, and grows downward into the soil. About 20 days after germination, the cotyledon reaches a length of about and begins to swell. By the thirtieth day the lower are swollen, and about half the reserves in the seed have been mobilised. At about this point in time, the young root (the

radicle In botany, the radicle is the first part of a seedling (a growing plant embryo) to emerge from the seed during the process of germination. The radicle is the embryonic root of the plant, and grows downward in the soil (the shoot emerges from ...

) emerges. Sixty days after germination the transfer of reserved from the seed has been completed, but it is only after 80 or 90 days that the young shoot (the

plumule A seedling is a young sporophyte developing out of a plant embryo from a seed. Seedling development starts with germination of the seed. A typical young seedling consists of three main parts: the radicle (embryonic root), the hypocotyl (embr ...

) emerges from the cotyledon.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q140821 Coryphoideae Flora of Belize Flora of Guatemala Monotypic Arecaceae genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Max Burret