Arecaceae
Chamaedorea

Chamaedorea palmeriana Hodel & N.W.Uhl

First published in Principes 34: 122 (1990)
This species is accepted
The native range of this species is Costa Rica to Panama. It is a shrub and grows primarily in the wet tropical biome.

Descriptions

Distribution
PANAMA. Chiriqui. Veraguas. COSTA RICA. Alajuela. Cartago. Heredia. Limon. San Jose.
General Description
Habit: solitary, slender, erect but often creeping or decumbent, to 1 m high. Stem: 7-10 min diam., smooth, green, ringed, internodes 5-10 cm long, often with aerial roots at base and rooting along its length. Leaves: 7 or sometimes more, spreading, bifid; sheath 5-7 cm long, tubular, green, minutely white-spotted, obliquely open apically, faintly longitudinally striate-nerved; petiole to 15 cm long, flattened and green above, rounded and green below; rachis 8-12 cm long, angled and green above, rounded below with a faint pale yellow or light green band extending onto sheath; blade to 25 x 25 cm, deeply bifid apically to more than 1/2 its length, ± thin, ± papery, bright emerald green, lobes to 15 x 9?cm, corrugated with 12-14 prominent nerves at top of each ridge above, exterior margins toothed. Inflorescences: interfoliar, erect; peduncles to 20-30 cm long, slender, 5-7 mm wide at base and there ± flattened, 2-3 mm diam. at apex and there rounded, greenish in flower, orange in fruit; bracts 4-5, prophyll 5 cm long, 2nd-4th bracts 15 cm long, uppermost not exceeding peduncle, tightly sheathing, longitudinally striate-nerved, acuminate, bifid, green in flower. Staminate with rachis 1-5 cm long, flexuous, greenish in flower; rachillae 2-7, these to 15 cm long, 1-1.5 mm diam., erect-spreading, longitudinally ridged, green. Pistillate spicate or rarely with 2-3 rachillae; rachis or flowerbearing portion 15-20 cm long, erect, 1.5-2 mm diam. and greenish in flower, thickened to 2.5 mm diam. and orange in fruit. Flowers: Staminate in moderately dense spirals, 2.5 x 2.5 mm, angular-globose, greenish apically, yellowish basally, slightly sunken; calyx 0.5 x 1.75 mm, deeply lobed, brownish, sepals, connate only briefly basally, broadly rounded apically; petals 2.5 x 2-2.5 mm, valvate, connate apically and basally and adnate apically to pistillode and corolla opening by.small basal apertures, these elliptic, 0.5 mm long, orange-brown margin around apertures, rounded-triangular, acute; stamens included; pistillode 2.5 mm high, columnar. Pistillate in rather dense spirals, 3-4 mm apart, 2 x 2 mm, depressed-globose, pale green, slightly sunken; calyx to 0.5 x 2 mm, shallowly lobed, sepals very briefly imbricate or connate basally, broadly rounded apically; petals 2-2.5 x 3 mm, imbricate basally, spreading apically, broadly rounded, acute, greenish or yellowish, 3 mm long in fruit, petals and sepals very lightly nerved on inside; pistil g1obose-subglobose, green, rounded, acute. Fruits: when immature 12 x 6 mm, ellipsoid, green, closely spaced on rachillae, 12 x 8-10 mm when mature, ovoid to globose, black.
Biology
Dense, wet forest on the Atlantic slope often up to and just over the Continental Divide; 450-1,800 m elevation.
[PW]

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation
Predicted extinction risk: threatened. Confidence: low confidence
[AERP]

Sources

  • Angiosperm Extinction Risk Predictions v1

    • Angiosperm Threat Predictions
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

  • Kew Backbone Distributions

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2025. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

  • Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2025. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

  • Palmweb - Palms of the World Online

    • Palmweb 2011. Palmweb: Palms of the World Online. Published on the internet http://www.palmweb.org. Accessed on 21/04/2013
    • Content licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0