Brilliant Palm

The Essence

"Cyphokentia macrostachya is one of only two species in Cyphokentia, a genus endemic to New Caledonia whose closest relative is Clinosperma — together the sole genera of subtribe Clinospermatinae. It grows only on the main island, Grande Terre, in rain forest on free-draining ground: POWO records it from central and southern New Caledonia and Rare Palm Seeds from the south and centre, while Palmpedia describes a wide but disjunct range taking in the far south, the centre and the northeast coast. Trunks reach roughly 15 m, carrying a crownshaft 0.5–1 m long that Palmpedia describes as light green, entirely covered in a whitish waxy coating and pale pinkish-white inside. Heavily branched inflorescences about 90 × 70 cm emerge below the crownshaft, reddish when young and later greenish, and ripen single-seeded fruit 10–20 mm long, red or black. Brongniart published the name in 1873, and the IUCN assessed the species as Least Concern in 2016, publishing the assessment in 2017. It is exceedingly rare in cultivation: the grower Geoff Stein notes its dark reddish crownshaft under a thick coating of white powder and its "very regular, evenly spaced, perfectly recurved pinnate leaves", but seed is nearly impossible to come by, reputedly difficult to germinate and very slow to grow."

Brongniart published the name in Comptes Rendus Hebd. Séances Acad. Sci. 77: 399 (1873). POWO lists six synonyms, among them Cyphokentia robusta, Dolichokentia robusta, Clinostigma macrostachyum and Kentia macrostachya. POWO and the GBIF backbone give the authorship as Brongn., while Wikipedia's genus page and the IUCN taxonomy give Pancher ex Brongn. Palmpedia's gallery documents cultivated specimens at Floribunda in Hawaii and in the Mt Warning caldera, New South Wales, Australia.