Dilip Walse Patil

Scientific Name : Roystonea regia (Kunth) O.F.Cook

Category : Angiosperms

Status : Alive

Habit : A talltree with trunk straight, smooth more or less swollen. Leaves : Very large, leaf sheath elongate, tightly enveloping the vegetative cone. Leaflets firmly papyraceous, ensiform, quite straight and very gradually narrow above from below the middle, to a very acuminate, rather rigid, briefly bifid apex. Spathes 2, the exterior one tubular, pervious at its upper end, considerably shorter than the interior one. Inflorescence : Spadices 3-4 at the same time, primary branches conspicuously swollen at their bases and divided into several alternate flowering branchlets, which are slender, terete, more or less sinous between the flowers. Flowers : Male Flowers : Considerably larger than the female, irregularly ovoid, obtuse, calyx very small with slightly imbricate, scarious, subpellucid, sub-deltoid, obtuse or acute, and more or less carinate sepals, petals considerably longer than the sepals, concave irregularly ovate-oblong or oblong-elliptical , bluntish or subacute, striately veined. Stamens usually 6-7, occasionally 8-9, abut as long as the petals, anthers relatively large, slightly shorter than the filaments, filaments linear subulate at the apex, rudimentary ovary globose with 3 short acute stigmatic points. Female Flowers : open a short time after the male, horizontal, sepals reniform, entire, smooth, slightly callous at the base, corolla four times as long as the calyx, staminodes forming a cup, lining the undivided part of the corolla, and crowned by 6 obtuse lobes, 3 of them peeping forth between the divisions of the corolla. Ovary globose, usually uni-cellular, stigmas fleshy, triangular-subulate, recurved. Fruit : Globose-obovoid, and somewhat gibbous. Seed broadly ovoid-elliptical, rounded at both ends. Flowering and Fruiting Time : March onwards Significance : This palm is popular in gardens and parks as an avenue tree.