''Corypha umbraculifera'', the talipot palm, is a species of palm native to eastern and southern India and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. It is also grown in Cambodia,

Myanmar 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 C. Wells, Joh ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, Thailand and 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 ...

. It is a flowering plant with the largest inflorescence in the world. It lives up to 60 years before bearing flowers and fruits. It dies shortly after.

Description

It is one of the largest palms with individual specimens having reached heights of up to with stems up to in diameter. It is a fan palm (

Arecaceae The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...

tribe Corypheae), with large,

palmate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

leaves up to in diameter, with a petiole up to , and up to 130 leaflets. The talipot palm bears the largest inflorescence of any plant, long, consisting of one to several million small flowers borne on a branched stalk that forms at the top of the trunk (the titan arum, ''

Amorphophallus titanum ''Amorphophallus'' (from Ancient Greek , "without form, misshapen" + ''phallos'', "penis", referring to the shape of the prominent spadix) is a large genus of some 200 tropical and subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants from the ''Arum'' family ...

'', from the family Araceae, has the largest unbranched inflorescence, and the species '' Rafflesia arnoldii'' has the world's largest single flower). The talipot palm is monocarpic, flowering only once, when it is 30 to 80 years old. It takes about a year for the fruit to mature, producing thousands of round, yellow-green fruit in diameter, each containing a single seed. The plant dies after fruiting.

Distribution

The talipot palm is cultivated in South India and

. It is also cultivated in Southeast Asian countries of Cambodia,

, Thailand and the

. It is also grown sparsely in

Uses

Historically, the leaves were written upon in various South Asian and South-East Asian cultures using an iron

stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision w ...

to create palm leaf manuscripts. In the Philippines, it is locally known as ''buri'' or ''buli''. The leaves are also used for

thatching Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

, and the sap is tapped to make palm wine. In South India, the palm leaves are used to make umbrellas for agricultural workers. The tree is known as ''kudapana'' (കുടപ്പന) in Malayalam, ''talo'' (, ''ତାଳ'') in

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

, ''sreetalam'' (''శ్రీతాళం'') in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and ''kudaipanai'' (''குடைப்பனை'') in Tamil, which means ''umbrella palm''. The plant is known as ''tala'' (''තල'') in Sri Lanka, by local Sinhalese people. In Cambodia, the palm is known as ''tréang'' (it was also known by the French name ''latanier''), and as noted above was extensively used in the past to write religious manunscripts. In recent times the leaf media has been used by traditional healers and soothsayers. The mature leaves are used to make thatches, mats and hats. The petioles can be used in the manufacture of canes, arrows and netting needles. At low tide, fishers use the fruit to stupefy fish.

Gallery

Image:Flowering_Talipot_Palm_06.jpg, At Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu, Hawaii File:Talipot palm fruit (Corypha umbraculifera).jpg, Talipot palm fruit Image:Corypha umbraculifera in Lyon Arboretum.jpg, At Lyon Arboretum, Hawaii, U.S. Image:Fleuraison talipot.JPG, At Jardin Botanique de Deshaies,

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...

Corypha umbraculifera 1913.jpg, ''Corypha umbraculifera'' painting (1913) File:Talapat.JPG,

References

PACSOA: ''Corypha umbraculifera''

External links