Monocotyledon

Arecaceae -- The Palm Family

Pritchardia

General Information
	Distribution	A complex genus of 27 species restricted to Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuamotu Archipelago, with the majority (24 species) restricted to the Hawaiian Islands.
	Habit	Erect, solitary stemmed, medium sized, unarmed, pleionanthic palms to 30(–40) m tall; trunk columnar, naked, smooth or fibrous, longitudinally grooved, and obscurely ringed with leaf scars.
	Leaves	Leaves shortly costapalmate, sometimes briefly persistent and forming a skirt, blade flabellate, regularly divided into 1-veined reduplicate segments with bifid apices, variously lepidote on abaxial surface, petiole, and major veins, base usually broadly cuneate, lateral segments from apex to base of blade progressively shorter and narrower, sheath fibrous, petiole elongate, concave, sometimes centrally ridged adaxially, rounded abaxially, variously lepidote, lanate, velutinous, terminating in a usually short, slightly blunt, often crescent-shaped ligule adaxially, either completely covered by closely appressed, densely matted, feltlike scales or closely dotted with conspicuous branlike scales, margin thin and sharp.
	Flowers	Inflorescences interfoliar, these shorter than to exceeding the leaves, arcuate or pendulous, at least in fruit, slender with a terminal cluster (panicle) of simple or compound branches or with a few similar lateral clusters, peduncle and each lateral cluster subtended by several coriaceous, concave, lanceolate, boat-shaped bracts with tubular bases, often equalling the inflorescence, panicle distal branches undivided, middle branches divided into 1‒2 branchlets, proximal branches of 3‒5 branchlets, ultimate branches subtended by open, small, membranous bracts and bearing solitary flowers, each flowering node subtended by a slender bracteole. Flowers sessile, perfect or at least functionally staminate, calyx cupular, shallowly 3-lobed, prominently veined or smooth when dry; petals 3, adnate basally to the staminal filament tube to about the height of the calyx, the distinct lobes valvate in bud, caducous as the flower expands, prominently pocketed and furrowed within, prominently veined when dry; stamens 6, filament flattened, thickish, connate basally into a tube equalling or exceeding the calyx and surrounding the carpels, then distinct and abruptly subulate, not inflexed at apex, anther erect in bud, dorsifixed, spreading erect to versatile at anthesis, oblong in outline, bilobed basally nearly to the point of insertion, apex emarginate, the connective narrow, anther sacs longitudinally and laterally dehiscent; carpels 3, normally only 1 maturing, coherent only basally, ovules 1 per carpel, with the broad based styles connate above into a trigonous column tapering to a shallowly trifid stigma, ovule anatropous, erect, attached at the base of the placenta.
	Fruit	Fruit brown to black at maturity, small to large, globose to ellipsoid, usually falling with the pedicelliform calyx and staminal tube attached, stigmatic scar and remains of abortive carpels apical, exocarp smooth, mesocarp thin, fleshy, with flat longitudinal fibers, endocarp thin, cartilaginous.
	Seeds	Seeds distinct from endocarp except at the hilum, shiny, endosperm homogeneous except for a shallow invagination of the testa below the raphe, embryo lateral near the base opposite the raphe.
	Notes	Named in honor of William T. Pritchard, 19th century British consul in the Fiji Islands.
	Contributor	David Lorence