''Pandanus glaucocephalus'' 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

A low (6-8m), branching tree. The 20 cm-wide trunk is grey, and bears only a few stilt-roots (or none at all), near the base of the stem. The leaves are slender and pale green. Leaf margins are lined with very tiny pale, yellow-brown spines. The leaf midrib also has spines, but not near the base. In its shape and growth form, this species most resembles the related ''

Pandanus barkleyi ''Pandanus barkleyi'' is a species of plant in the family Pandanaceae, endemic to Mauritius. Description This is an extremely variable and difficult to identify species. Overall in its shape and growth form, this species can sometimes resemble ...

''. This species is most easily distinguished by its 17–20 cm, globose, glaucous, blue-grey fruit-head. This is born on a short, fat stem, with long, slender, leaf-like bracts that extend further than the fruit-head. Each fruit-head holds 35-45 compressed or irregularly angled drupes. The drupes' exposed parts are raised and conical, with flattened or depressed tips, covered in cracks and scattered stigmas.

Habitat

The Pandanus glaucocephalus 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 grows in exposed, isolated patches in the highlands. 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.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

glaucocephalus Endemic flora of Mauritius {{Pandanales-stub