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  1. Family: Arecaceae Bercht. & J.Presl
    1. Genus: Roystonea O.F.Cook

      1. Roystonea regia (Kunth) O.F.Cook

        This species is accepted, and its native range is S. Florida, N. Central & SE. Mexico to Central America, Caribbean.

    [PW]
    Vernacular
    Florida royal palm, royal palm (U.S.A.), palma criolla, palma real, palma de seda (Cuba), waa (Panama), yagua, palma macho (Nee, 1987), Cuban royal palm, royal palm (in culti vation).
    General Description
    Trunk gray-white, to 20(-30) m tall, 37-57.5 cm diam. Leaves ca. 15, lowest leaves hanging below the horizontal; crownshaft ca. 2 m long; rachis ca. 4 m long; middle segments 63- 119 cm long and 2.5-4.6 cm wide. Inflorescence ca. 1 m long and 1 m wide; prophyll ca. 36 cm long and 7.3 cm wide; peduncular bract 0.8-1 .6 m long and 9.8-13 cm wide, widest at the middle, apex acuminate; rachillae 11-31 cm long and 0.9-2.3 mm diam. Staminate flowers white; sepals triangular, 0.8-1.4 mm long and 0.9-2 mm wide; petals elliptical 10 ovate, 3.5-6.4 mm long and 2.2-3.5 mm wide; stamens 6-9, 3.2-7.5 mm long; filaments awl-shaped, 2.3-5.6 mm long; anthers 2.4-4.5 mm long; pistillode minute. Pistillate flowers white,2-4.5 per cm; sepals reniform, 0.7-1 .8 mm long and 1.8-3.4 mm wide; petals ovate, 2.7-3.7 mm long mm; gynoecium 1.1-3.5 mm long and 0.9-2.6 mm diam. Fruits spheroid to ellipsoid, somewhat dorsiventrally compressed, 8.9-15.1 mm long, 6.9-11.2 mm dorsi ventral thickness, and 7-10.9 mm wide; epicarp purplish black, stigmatic scar plain; endocarp ellipsoid, 7.5-11.1 mm long, 6-7.7 mm dorsi ventral thickness, and 5.8-7.9 mm wide; seed ellipsoid, somewhat dorsiventrally compressed, 5.5-9.7 mm long, 4-6.3 mm dorsiventral thickness, and 5.1-7.2 mm wide; raphe circular. Eophyll linear-lanceolate, 13.5-19 cm long and 1.3-1.5 cm wide, exstipitate, weakly costate. n = 18 (Sharma & Sarkar, 1957).
    Distribution
    Abundantly distributed throughout the hillsides and valleys of Cuba and the hammocks of the Everglades in Collier, Dade, and Monroe Counties, Florida, U.S.A. (Small, 1928; Austin et al., 1980; Jones, 1983). Also present in the Yucatan Peninsula and Gulf Coastal Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. Indigenous populations also exist in the Cayman Islands. This species appears to be the palm found by Gillis et a1. (1975) in the Bahamas. This taxon is very commonly cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics and apparently naturalizes with ease.
    [PW]
    Use
    It is used in Cuba for timber, thatch, and hog feed. It is very popular as a cultivated ornamental.

    Images

    Distribution

    Native to:

    Bahamas, Belize, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Florida, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southeast

    Introduced into:

    El Salvador, Leeward Is., Panamá, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago

    Roystonea regia (Kunth) O.F.Cook appears in other Kew resources:

    Date Reference Identified As Barcode Type Status
    Oct 8, 1956 Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632571 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632568 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632569 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632570 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632573 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632574 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632575 holotype
    Jenman [2057], Guyana Roystonea jenmanii K000632572 holotype

    First published in Science, ser. 2, 12: 479 (1900)

    Accepted by

    • Baksh-Comeau, Y., Maharaj, S.S., Adams, C.D., Harris, S.A., Filer, D.L. & Hawthorne, W.D. (2016). An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Trinidad and Tobago with analysis of vegetation types and botanical 'hotspots' Phytotaxa 250: 1-431.
    • Berendsohn, W.G., Gruber, A.K. & Monterrosa Salomón, J. (2012). Nova Silva Cusatlantica. Árboles natinos e introducidos de El Salvador. Parte 2: Angiospermae - Familias M a P y Pteridophyta Englera 29-2: 1-300.
    • Meyer, J.-Y., Lavergne, C. & Hodel, D.R. (2008). Time bombs in gardens: invasive ornamental palms in tropical islands, with emphasis on French Polynesia (Pacific Ocean) and the Mascarenes (Indian Ocean) Palms; Journal of the International Palm Society 52: 23-35.
    • Nelson Sutherland, C.H. (2008). Catálogo de las plantes vasculares de Honduras. Espermatofitas: 1-1576. SERNA/Guaymuras, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
    • Acevedo-Rodríguez, P. & Strong, M.T. (2005). Monocotyledons and Gymnosperms of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 52: 1-415.
    • Govaerts, R. & Dransfield, J. (2005). World Checklist of Palms: 1-223. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
    • Stevens, W.D., Ulloa U., C., Pool, A. & Montiel, O.M. (2001). Flora de Nicaragua Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden 85: i-xlii, 1-2666.

    Literature

    Palmweb - Palms of the World Online
    • Zona, S. 1996. Roystonea.(Arecaceae: Arecoideae). Flora Neotropica Monograph 71, 1-35.
    Kew Backbone Distributions
    • Baksh-Comeau, Y., Maharaj, S.S., Adams, C.D., Harris, S.A., Filer, D.L. & Hawthorne, W.D. (2016). An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Trinidad and Tobago with analysis of vegetation types and botanical 'hotspots' Phytotaxa 250: 1-431.
    • Berendsohn, W.G., Gruber, A.K. & Monterrosa Salomón, J. (2012). Nova Silva Cusatlantica. Árboles natinos e introducidos de El Salvador. Parte 2: Angiospermae - Familias M a P y Pteridophyta Englera 29-2: 1-300.
    • Meyer, J.-Y., Lavergne, C. & Hodel, D.R. (2008). Time bombs in gardens: invasive ornamental palms in tropical islands, with emphasis on French Polynesia (Pacific Ocean) and the Mascarenes (Indian Ocean) Palms; Journal of the International Palm Society 52: 23-35.
    • Acevedo-Rodríguez, P. & Strong, M.T. (2005). Monocotyledons and Gymnosperms of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 52: 1-415.

    Sources

    Art and Illustrations in Digifolia
    Digital Image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    Herbarium Catalogue Specimens
    'The Herbarium Catalogue, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet http://www.kew.org/herbcat [accessed on Day Month Year]'. Please enter the date on which you consulted the system.
    Digital Image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    Kew Backbone Distributions
    The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2019. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
    © Copyright 2017 World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

    Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone
    The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2019. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
    © Copyright 2017 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. 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