''Pandanus barkleyi'' is a species of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the family

Pandanaceae Pandanaceae is a family of flowering plants native to the tropics and subtropics of the Old World, from West Africa through the Pacific. It contains 982 known species in five genera, of which the type genus, ''Pandanus'', is the most important, wi ...

, endemic to

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

Description

This is an extremely variable and difficult to identify species. Overall in its shape and growth form, this species can sometimes resemble the related '' Pandanus glaucocephalus''. ''Pandanus barkleyi'' is typically a short (4-5m) tree, with ascending branches. The 10–18 cm wide trunk is grey, fissured, and bears only a few stilt-roots near the base of the stem. The leaves are slender and dark green, with a translucent light-yellow midrib. New leaves are initially erect, but they later droop, and eventually the old dead leaves persist hanging around the stem, beneath the dense rosette. The leaf margins are lined with very tiny yellow-green spines, but these are usually not near the leaf base. This species has variable 9–18 cm, globose fruit-head that becomes greenish-brown to purple when ripe. Each fruit-head holds an extremely variable number (50-150) of drupes, which also vary in size, colour and shape. The drupes' exposed parts are often raised and conical, often covered in cracks and scattered stigmas.

Habitat

It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

, and dense clumps of it are quite common in the highlands, in marshes and on hill slopes. It sometimes spreads vegetatively, rather than through seed. The leaf tufts can cause longer branches to break off and root on the ground where they fall. This can lead to large clumps forming and spreading outwards. The inside of the clump can die away, and the soil here is transformed into raised drier soil by the Pandanus. In this modified soil, other plants species develop and grow.Roskov Y., Abucay L., Orrell T., Nicolson D., Bailly N., Kirk P.M., Bourgoin T., DeWalt R.E., Decock W., De Wever A., Nieukerken E. van, Zarucchi J., Penev L., eds. (2018). ''Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life'', 20 December 2017. Digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org/col. Species 2000: Naturalis, Leiden, the Netherlands. ISSN 2405-8858.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15575513 barkleyi Endemic flora of Mauritius Taxa named by Isaac Bayley Balfour