Ivory cane palm

The Essence

"Pinanga coronata is a clustering understorey palm from the rainforests of Indonesia, and the type species of a genus of about 131 species. Blume published the combination in Rumphia in 1839; the species was described from a specimen from Megamendung, on the slopes of Mt Gede-Pangrango south-east of Bogor in West Java, and its basionym is Areca coronata, published by Martius in 1838. A 2002 revision by Witono, Mogea and Somadikarta concluded that the clustered Pinanga of Java and Bali represent a single, highly variable species, reducing P. kuhlii, P. costata and P. noxa to synonyms; growers still separate a lowland 'kuhlii' form, with broader, more mottled leaflets and pendulous inflorescences, from the narrow-leafleted montane form found above about 1000 m, with intermediates between the two. It is one of the most commonly grown Pinanga, valued for its yellowish crownshafts and bright red to blackish flower stalks and fruit, and streets in the tropics are sometimes lined with plantings of it. That readiness has a cost. POWO records it as introduced in Fiji, Hawaii, the Society Islands and Trinidad-Tobago, and Dyer and colleagues (2019) found that in a Fijian rainforest its cover was strongly and negatively related to the abundance of native tree ferns; the relationship was strongest for tree fern seedlings and weakest for mature plants, implying that the palm prevents the ferns establishing, and the authors concluded it poses a severe threat to Fiji's native biodiversity. It is also listed for Hawaii in the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. In its native range the seeds are chewed as a betel-nut substitute, the plant is used in traditional medicine, the leaves for thatching and the tough outer part of the stem for laths."

Two long-standing locality errors follow this palm through the literature. Index Kewensis gave Celebes (Sulawesi) as the type locality of P. coronata and Malaya for P. kuhlii, but the 2002 revision states that P. coronata has never been found in Celebes and that no specimen or record has ever been documented from Malaya. Some sources also still give the Andaman Islands as part of the native range, but POWO lists the Andamans under "recorded in error". Pinanga coronata was chosen by Beccari and Pichi-Sermolli in 1955 as the type of the genus Pinanga.