Winin palm

The Essence

"Veitchia winin is a slender, solitary feather palm endemic to Vanuatu, described by Harold E. Moore in 1957 from what was then the New Hebrides. It was historically most widespread on Malakula, where it was the dominant species, until agricultural expansion reduced that population. Documentation of the species is thin. GBIF held only about 35 occurrence records worldwide when checked in August 2026. The Vanuatu vouchers come mostly from Malakula, around Lakatoro and Tisbel, with a further record from Enkul on Pentecost Island; the remainder are largely herbarium and garden records of cultivated plants, including material at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida. The species is one of eleven in Veitchia, a genus native to the Pacific islands of Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga and the Solomon Islands. In cultivation it is valued as a fast-growing ornamental with a long pale crownshaft and pendulous leaflets, planted as a single specimen or in groups in parks and gardens and in rows along roadsides, and it is described as needing little care and dropping little debris. A Hawai'i Pacific Weed Risk Assessment screened it on 20 November 2002 and scored it -4, classing it a low-risk plant, with no naturalization or weediness recorded despite repeated introductions to Belize, Florida and Hawai'i; the orange-to-red fruit is bird-dispersed and the plant is monoecious and self-compatible. It closely resembles Veitchia arecina, which differs in its longer male flowers (about 1.5 cm against 1 cm), higher stamen count (80-130 against 40-60) and much larger fruit (2.5-4 cm against 1.5-1.8 cm)."

Described by Harold E. Moore (1917-1980) in Gentes Herbarum 8: 499 (1957), with an illustration in the protologue. IPNI records the protologue locality as "N. Hebrides", the colonial-era name for Vanuatu. The name is accepted by POWO, by World Flora Online and by the GBIF backbone taxonomy, with no synonyms recorded.