Climbing palms are genera in the family

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 ...

that grow as

liana A liana is a long- stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. The word ''liana'' does not refer to a ta ...

s. "Initially erect, the slender stems seek out trees for support and climb up into the forest canopy by means of recurved hooks and spines growing on the stem, leaves and inflorescences. In all climbing palms the leaves are pinnate and grow along the stem instead of forming a dense crown. The stems of climbing palms, more often referred to as canes, are solid in contrast to

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

poles which are almost always hollow."(c) FAO 1995. Tropical Palms. Introduction. ''NON-WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS'' 10 http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0451E/X0451e03.htm "The majority of climbing palms are also clumping palms nd sympodial/nowiki>, sending out new shoots from elow ground as suckers/nowiki>." "About 600 species of palms in 6/nowiki> genera have a climbing growth habit. Most noteworthy is the genus ''

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 ...

''--the largest genus in the palm family with approximately 350 described species--source of nearly all commercial

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 ...

." The habit of "climbing palm" is one of the terms used for referring to the diversity of habits of palm stems, the rest are "arborescent palms" or tree palms, "shrub palms" and "acaulescent palms", as defined in Dransfield (1978 cited in Kubitzki ed. 1998,Arecaceae in: Kubitzki (ed 1998) in: ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' see also Uhl & Dransfield 1987 ''Genera Palmarum'').

Diversity

Most climbing palms are the ones called rattan. Rattans are closely related and all belong to the family

Calamoideae Calamoideae is a subfamily of flowering plant in the palm family found throughout Central America, South America, Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia and Australia. It is represented by 21 genera - containing nearly a quarter of all spe ...

, most of them in the tribe

Calameae CalameaeKunth CS ex Lecoq & Juillet (1831) ''Dictionnaire raisonne des termes de botanique'' 98. is a palm tree tribe in the subfamily Calamoideae. The type genus is ''Calamus (palm), Calamus'' and many of its members are rattans. Genera * ''C ...

. The genera: ''

'', principally, also ''

Daemonorops ''Daemonorops'' was a genus of rattan palms in the family Arecaceae. Its species are now included within the genus ''Calamus''. Species found primarily in the tropics and subtropics of southeastern Asia with a few species extending into souther ...

, Ceratolobus,

Korthalsia ''Korthalsia'' is a clustering genus of flowering plant in the palm family spread throughout Southeast Asia. It is a highly specialized rattan with some species known to have an intimate relationship with ants, hence the common name ant rattan.Uh ...

, Plectocomia,

Plectocomiopsis ''Plectocomiopsis'' is a dioecious genus of flowering plant in the arecaceae, palm family found in Indochina, Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. Hapaxanthic and armed with spines, they are a climbing rattan, closely related to the ''Myrialepis'' palm ...

Myrialepis ''Myrialepis'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family, the single species, ''Myrialepis paradoxa'', native to Southeast Asia.Riffle, Robert L. and Craft, Paul (2003) ''An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms''. Portland: Timber Pr ...

Calospatha ''Calospatha'' is an extremely rare, monotypic genus of flowering plant in the Arecaceae, palm family found in peninsular Malaysia, where it is referred to as rotan demuk. It is not common in collections, nor has it been found in the wild for se ...

, Pogonotium'', ''

Retispatha ''Retispatha'' is a rare, monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family endemic to Borneo, where the sole species, ''Retispatha dumetosa'', is known as (dialectal: ) or 'the bear's sugar cane'. The name combines Latin and Greek words mea ...

'', ''

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 ...

'' (syn. ''Ancistrophyllum''), ''

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 ''

Oncocalamus ''Oncocalamus'' is a monoecious genus of flowering plants in the palm family found in western Africa. The genus is the lone member of the Oncocalaminae; once placed with the vegetatively similar '' Eremospatha'' and '' Laccosperma'' in the Anc ...

''.Terry C.H. Sunderland and John Dransfield. Species Profiles. Ratans. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/y2783e/y2783e05.htm All rattans belong to the Old World. In the New World there are 2 genera with climbing representatives, '' Chamaedorea'' (subfamily Ceroxyloxideae, tribe Hyophorbeae) and ''

Desmoncus ''Desmoncus'' is a genus of mostly climbing, spiny palms native to the Neotropics. The genus extends from Mexico in the north to Brazil and Bolivia in the south, with two species present in the southeastern Caribbean (Trinidad and the Windwar ...

'' (subfamily Arecoideae, tribe Cocoseae), the last one is utilized and commercialized much in the same way as rattans. ''

Dypsis scandens ''Dypsis'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Arecaceae. They are slender, evergreen palms with yellow flowers carried in panicles amongst the pinnate leaves. Many ''Dypsis'' species have aerial branching (above the main trunk), a r ...

'' (subfamily Arecoideae, tribe Areceae) is a climbing palm in Madagascar.

References

Bibliography

* * * , in {{refend Arecaceae Plants by habit Vines

Diversity

See also

References

Bibliography