Cyphosperma Balansae

The Essence

"Cyphosperma balansae is a solitary pinnate palm endemic to New Caledonia, scattered through the central and northeastern parts of Grande Terre. It is the only member of its genus in New Caledonia; the rest of Cyphosperma occurs in Fiji and Vanuatu. It reaches about 12 m, with a dark green to purplish-black trunk 9-20 cm thick and prominently ringed by leaf scars, carrying a crown of 10 to 20 stiff, erect leaves 1.5 to 3 m long. The leaves are tristichous, arranged in three ranks, and in cultivated plants their near-vertical orientation gives a silhouette likened to a shuttlecock. There is almost no crownshaft; the leaf bases are instead covered with a purplish-brown tomentum that turns green towards the top. Arched, hanging inflorescences arise from beneath the petioles and carry nearly globular fruit 1 to 1.2 cm across, red when ripe. Growers separate it from other New Caledonian palms by the combination of stiffly ascending leaves, lack of a crownshaft and long arching inflorescences. Seeds are collected for the international horticultural trade, but the palm remains very rare in cultivation, and by one account it is the only Cyphosperma to have reached California."

The species was described by Brongniart as Cyphokentia balansae in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences 77: 400 (1873). The combination Cyphosperma balansae, attributed to H. Wendland ex Salomon, was published in Gartenflora 33: 272 (1884) and is the name accepted by Plants of the World Online. The IUCN assessment follows the taxonomy of Pintaud & Baker's 2008 revision of the palm genera of New Caledonia in Kew Bulletin 63(1): 61-73.