''Trithrinax'' is a genus 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 ...

s in the subfamily

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, s ...

of the family Arecaceae. The name is derived from ancient Greek, where ''tri'' means three, and ''thrinax'' trident. It was named in 1837 by

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius Carl Friedrich Philipp (Karl Friedrich Philipp) von Martius (17 April 1794 – 13 December 1868) was a German botanist and explorer. Life Martius was born at Erlangen, the son of Prof Ernst Wilhelm Martius, court apothecary. He graduated PhD ...

, a German botanist and explorer.Moore, H. E., Jr. 1963. An annotated checklist of cultivated palms. ''Trithrinax'' species are spiny fan palms native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. They are resistant to cold, heat, wind, drought, poor soils and other adverse environmental conditions. Seeds germinate fast, but their overall growth rate is distinctly slow.Riffle, Robert L. and Craft, Paul (2003) ''An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms''. Portland: Timber Press. /

Description

Common features of ''Trithrinax'' species include: *''Flowers'':

Inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s, in the order of hundreds of units. Flowers with three sepals, three

petals Petals are modified leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''corolla''. Petals are usually ...

, six stamens and three carpels. *''Stem'': Dead foliage is kept as a thick and spiny coat around the trunk. *''Leaves'': Fan shaped (palmate), composed of strong resistant fibers. *''

Shoot In botany, a plant shoot consists of any plant stem together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the sp ...

s'': Red coloured.

Taxonomy

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 o ...

placed the genus ''Trithrinax'' in subfamily

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 is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

Corypheae and 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 ...

analyses showed that the Old World 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. ...

members of Thrinacinae are not closely related. As a consequence, ''Trithrinax'' 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 ...

Habitat

''Trithrinax'' species are spread along vast subtropical zones of South America: Bolivia,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. They prefer dry, open or forest clearing, environments, with moderate to cold winters.Jones, D. L. 1994. Palms throughout the world.

Usage

Leaf fibers are used as raw material for textiles, rustic clothing, and

handicrafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

. Oil can also be extracted from seeds. Fruits are sometimes used locally, fermented, to produce alcoholic beverages.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q144709 Arecaceae genera Flora of South America Taxonomy articles created by Polbot