Tindéa palm

The Essence

"Kentiopsis oliviformis is one of New Caledonia's grandest palms: a gregarious emergent tree to about 30 m that rises above transitional semi-humid forest in the centre of Grande Terre. The 19th-century collector Vieillard, who recorded the vernacular name 'Kipe' at Canala, reported that it exceeded 30 m and outgrew the coconut palms, from which it differed only by its small red fruits — olive-shaped, and the source of the epithet oliviformis. In valley bottoms of the Tindéa–Boghen area it forms numerous nearly pure stands of 0.1–1 ha along temporary streams, regenerating only at the periphery of each stand where mature trees are more widely spaced. Since 2021 the accepted name in Plants of the World Online has been Chambeyronia oliviformis, but the palm is still traded as Kentiopsis oliviformis under the name 'Tindéa palm', and though usually thought slow-growing it has shown impressive growth in south-east Queensland and Hawaii. The IUCN Red List assesses it as Endangered: all populations lie in areas under agricultural pressure and none regenerates normally, with cattle grazing, forest clearing and harvesting of trees for the edible palm heart behind much of the decline."

Brongniart & Gris described the species in 1864 as Kentia olivaeformis from an incomplete Vieillard collection made at Canala, which lacked leaves and male flowers; in 1873 Brongniart transferred it to his newly established genus Kentiopsis. In 2021 Hodel & Barrett sank Kentiopsis into Chambeyronia, making the accepted name Chambeyronia oliviformis. Trees have long been cut for the edible 'cabbage' (palm heart), and the government of New Caledonia's South Province has fenced an experimental cattle-exclusion area near Boghen to protect one stand.