Rhapis Fruiting

[Pal Meir]

I hope that my Rhapis cochinchinensis (< laosensis) is really fruiting and not only producing hollow fruits without seeds. 

Please post photos of your Rhapis too when it is bearing fruits, if possible mature ones with distinct colours (and not only green as mine).

[gyuseppe]

Pal you have male and female of  Rhapis cochinchinensis ?

[Pal Meir]

28 minutes ago, gyuseppe said:

Pal you have male and female of  Rhapis cochinchinensis ?

I have a male-hermaphrodite (α) and a female (β) plant, but the timing of the blooming didn’t fit so that the fruits posted here are only fruits of the hermaphrodite flowers; cf. also my thread on dimorphism.

[PalmTreeDude]

Cool! 

[Pal Meir]

As nobody else posts a pic here, I’ll add a photo from Singapore BG. The Rhapis was labelled as »humilis« what is evidently not correct. I guess it might be R gracilis (?), because the colour of the fruits seems to become bluish-green (cf. Henderson 2009, p. 160):

[Phoenikakias]

Pal, on my excelsa ripe fruits are creamy white and on my multifida they are purplish black. Now use yous imagination...

[Pal Meir]

16 minutes ago, Phoenikakias said:

Pal, on my excelsa ripe fruits are creamy white and on my multifida they are purplish black. Now use yous imagination...

These are the data according to Henderson:
cochinchinensis / ?
excelsa / yellow; cf also Palmpedia: http://www.palmpedia.net/wiki/images/2/23/Rexcelsafruit.JPG
gracilis / blue-green
humilis / ???
micrantha / white
multifida / yellow
puhuongensis / yellow or white
robusta / ?
siamensis / whitish
subtilis / whitish
vidalii / white

Your multifida’s are purplish-black?  Not yellow? Could it be humilis?

But much better than my imagination were many photos!

[Pal Meir]

4 hours ago, Pal Meir said:

As nobody else posts a pic here, I’ll add a photo from Singapore BG. The Rhapis was labelled as »humilis« what is evidently not correct. I guess it might be R gracilis (?), because the colour of the fruits seems to become bluish-green (cf. Henderson 2009, p. 160):

Perhaps the fruits of the Rhapis from Singapore BG are still immature, so that the colour would change when they ripen to »whitish«. If that is the case I would guess it could be R subtilis.

[gyuseppe]

4 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Pal, on my excelsa ripe fruits are creamy white and on my multifida they are purplish black. Now use yous imagination...

Konstantinos but seeds are fertile?

[Phoenikakias]

On 4/11/2016, 6:18:36, Pal Meir said:

These are the data according to Henderson:
cochinchinensis / ?
excelsa / yellow; cf also Palmpedia: http://www.palmpedia.net/wiki/images/2/23/Rexcelsafruit.JPG
gracilis / blue-green
humilis / ???
micrantha / white
multifida / yellow
puhuongensis / yellow or white
robusta / ?
siamensis / whitish
subtilis / whitish
vidalii / white

Your multifida’s are purplish-black?  Not yellow? Could it be humilis?

But much better than my imagination were many photos!

Well actually not purplish-green but rather bllue-green and I am sure about it. Not humilis, definitely not, moreover it resembles closely the multifida. Unfortunately, I did not have this year any fruition on my Rhapis for pictures.Interestingly my Rhapis excelsa blooms every year, but it does not set fruits also always.

[Phoenikakias]

21 hours ago, gyuseppe said:

Konstantinos but seeds are fertile?

Nope, never until now. There is  a very tiny seed, which is empty inside.

[Pal Meir]

30 minutes ago, Phoenikakias said:

Well actually not purplish-green but rather bllue-green and I am sure about it. Not humilis, definitely not, moreover it resembles closely the multifida. Unfortunately, I did not have this year any fruition on my Rhapis for pictures.Interestingly my Rhapis excelsa blooms every year, but it does not set fruits also always.

Could blue-green (as in my Singapore photo) mean that the seeds were not yet mature ……?

[Pal Meir]

Really producing ripe fruits with viable seeds?

[Phoenikakias]

Very uncertain

[Pal Meir]

How many years  does it take for the fruits to ripen ………?

[Phoenikakias]

Pal my man, have you opened one fruit already to see whether there is a real seed inside? You got to do it. Unpollinated fruits take A LOT longer to ripen.

[Pal Meir]

19 minutes ago, Phoenikakias said:

Pal my man, have you opened one fruit already to see whether there is a real seed inside? You got to do it. Unpollinated fruits take A LOT longer to ripen.

I had made a cross-section of one: There was a seed (endosperm) inside the fruit.

[Phoenikakias]

Any pictures of dissected piece?

[Pal Meir]

4 hours ago, Phoenikakias said:

Any pictures of dissected piece?

I don’t want to kill one more,  so I present only my artistic work  of the cross-section I had made of one immature fruit:

[Pal Meir]

@Phoenikakias For comparison: My Chamaerops bloomed all the years in May and the pollinated fruits got mature in November, i.e. after 1/2 year. This Rhapis bloomed as late as August, so that I can expect ripe fruits only about next February. I guess in Greece Chamaerops (and Rhapis too) ripens much faster.

[Pal Meir]

Morphology of an immature fruit:

[Pal Meir]

Still immature, but getting fatter; I guess I have to wait further two months:

[DCA_Palm_Fan]

I sure hope you do get viable seeds Pal!  That's awesome!   Do you have any photo of the entire plant? 

[Pal Meir]

12 hours ago, DCA_Palm_Fan said:

I sure hope you do get viable seeds Pal!  That's awesome!   Do you have any photo of the entire plant? 

These two trees (on the left female, right male with male & hermaphrodite inflorescence) were grown up from seed sold as Rhapis excelsa.

[DCA_Palm_Fan]

5 hours ago, Pal Meir said:

These two trees (on the left female, right male with male & hermaphrodite inflorescence) were grown up from seed sold as Rhapis excelsa.

Beautiful!!!!    Love it.    

You know, that makes me wonder about a small Rhapis that I purchased about a month or so ago, labeled as Excelsa.   I already have one thats about the same age purchased from the same place, and it is Clearly R. Excelsa.   This newer one, is taller due to longer arching petioles, and the leaflet tips look much more pointy like yours, than jagged toothed flat ends like the R. Excelsa I already had.   This new one was in a much tinier pot too.   I wonder if maybe it was not mislabeled and might actually be Cochinchinesis.   It sure does look a lot more like yours than the other one I have.  It also has a thinner trunk that the other one I have as well.      Shall I post photos? 

[Pal Meir]

2 hours ago, DCA_Palm_Fan said:

Beautiful!!!!    Love it.    

You know, that makes me wonder about a small Rhapis that I purchased about a month or so ago, labeled as Excelsa.   I already have one thats about the same age purchased from the same place, and it is Clearly R. Excelsa.   This newer one, is taller due to longer arching petioles, and the leaflet tips look much more pointy like yours, than jagged toothed flat ends like the R. Excelsa I already had.   This new one was in a much tinier pot too.   I wonder if maybe it was not mislabeled and might actually be Cochinchinesis.   It sure does look a lot more like yours than the other one I have.  It also has a thinner trunk that the other one I have as well.      Shall I post photos? 

Not on this thread; there is another one for similar cases:

http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/49881-rhapis-chaotica-a-common-species/

[sarasota alex]

On 11/5/2016, 1:25:16, Phoenikakias said:

Well actually not purplish-green but rather bllue-green and I am sure about it. Not humilis, definitely not, moreover it resembles closely the multifida. Unfortunately, I did not have this year any fruition on my Rhapis for pictures.Interestingly my Rhapis excelsa blooms every year, but it does not set fruits also always.

Rhapis multifida is no longer considered to be a separate species. It has been merged into R. humilis.

[Phoenikakias]

Interesting, because I have humilis, which is quite different from what I believed to be multifida!

[Pal Meir]

3 hours ago, sarasota alex said:

Rhapis multifida is no longer considered to be a separate species. It has been merged into R. humilis.

Who has merged R multifida together with R humilis? Both species have a different morphology, and I hope that this is only a fake news.

[sarasota alex]

4 hours ago, Pal Meir said:

Who has merged R multifida together with R humilis? Both species have a different morphology, and I hope that this is only a fake news.

Henderson, Andrew (2016) A revision of Rhapis (Arecaceae). Phytotaxa; Vol 258.

The holotype specimen used by Max Burret to originally describe Rhapis multifida in 1937 collected in 1935 was destroyed and the original collection locality cannot be found on maps. Isotype specimens that were supposed to be located in three herbaria collections - Sun Yat-sen University, South China Botanical Garden, and Kunming Institute of Botany, could not be located and are also presumed destroyed. Plants found in that general area in habitat are R. humilis.

The modern description of R. multifida comes from Hastings, L. (2003) A revision of Rhapis, the lady palms. Palms 47: 62–78. Most of the specimens of R. multifida and R. humilis that she examined came from cultivation and she mixed a lot of them up. Multiple mistaken identities were later uncovered (such as mixing up specimen 158 and 518 for example). The only habitat collected "R. humilis" specimen she used in her descriptions, later turned out to be Rhapis robusta.

So as sad as it is - Rhapis multifida, albeit a highly charismatic palm greatly contributing to the diversity of cold-hardy gardens, does not merit speciation. 

And Hastings work is a clear example of how dangerous it is to use cultivation experience and specimens in taxonomy, especially those of unverified origin. So unfortunately, what we may perceive to be R. multifida morphology does not come from a reliable source.

[Pal Meir]

31 minutes ago, sarasota alex said:

Henderson, Andrew (2016) A revision of Rhapis (Arecaceae). Phytotaxa; Vol 258.

The holotype specimen used by Max Burret to originally describe Rhapis multifida in 1937 collected in 1935 was destroyed and the original collection locality cannot be found on maps. Isotype specimens that were supposed to be located in three herbaria collections - Sun Yat-sen University, South China Botanical Garden, and Kunming Institute of Botany, could not be located and are also presumed destroyed. Plants found in that general area in habitat are R. humilis.

The modern description of R. multifida comes from Hastings, L. (2003) A revision of Rhapis, the lady palms. Palms 47: 62–78. Most of the specimens of R. multifida and R. humilis that she examined came from cultivation and she mixed a lot of them up. Multiple mistaken identities were later uncovered (such as mixing up specimen 158 and 518 for example). The only habitat collected "R. humilis" specimen she used in her descriptions, later turned out to be Rhapis robusta.

So as sad as it is - Rhapis multifida, albeit a highly charismatic palm greatly contributing to the diversity of cold-hardy gardens, does not merit speciation. 

And Hastings work is a clear example of how dangerous it is to use cultivation experience and specimens in taxonomy, especially those of unverified origin. So unfortunately, what we may perceive to be R. multifida morphology does not come from a reliable source.

Thank you very much for the link to Henderson’s article!  I’ll study it afterwards more carefully, but what I don’t understand at present is this: There are two very different Rhapis species, one is the »traditional« R humilis which was only known as male trees from cultivation (Japanese: shurochiku 棕櫚竹) and can grow stems up to 6 m tall, and the other more delicate one known as R multifida, with slender stems up to 2.5 m tall, often grown up from seeds. — Since the merging of Lytocaryum insigne into L weddellianum by Henderson I am quite skeptical when I examine his argumentation. Also the contrary is not always plausible, e.g. his separation of Arenga ryukyuensis from A engleri as new species.

[Pal Meir]

According to Henderson 2016 my R cochinchinensis should be renamed to R laosensis var. laosensis, and my plant α with hermaphrodite flowers seems to be quite rare (H. didn’t see any).

http://biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.258.2.3

[sarasota alex]

Unfortunately a combination of a loss of original types, ambiguities in the original description, and inability to obtain a new reliable specimen, almost always results in species being reduced to synonyms or even nomina nuda. Recently the same thing happened to Phoenix andamanensis, which has been merged into Phoenix paludosa. During the most recent DNA analysis of the genus, there were no means to collect and bring back samples from the Andaman Islands  

[Pal Meir]

On 5.11.2016, 18:25:16, Phoenikakias said:

Well actually not purplish-green but rather bllue-green and I am sure about it. Not humilis, definitely not, moreover it resembles closely the multifida. Unfortunately, I did not have this year any fruition on my Rhapis for pictures.Interestingly my Rhapis excelsa blooms every year, but it does not set fruits also always.

If Henderson 2016 is correct fruits od all Rhapis spp have to be »white or yellow« when ripe. So I guess the reason for the bad viability of your »R multifida« seeds was that they were still immature (»blue-green«)?

 

[sarasota alex]

8 hours ago, Pal Meir said:

 Also the contrary is not always plausible, e.g. his separation of Arenga ryukyuensis from A engleri as new species.

There is a PhD thesis by ML Jeanson of Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris titled Systématique de la tribu des Caryoteae (Arecaceae) (2011), based on which Kew has recently recognized sinking Wallichia into Arenga (although the checklist has not been updated yet to reflect it). It is considered to be the most recent revision of Caryota, Arenga (including Wallichia). However it is not available in pdf  It would be interesting to know how it deals with these spp.

[Pal Meir]

Rhapis cochinchinensis / laosensis var. laosensis: Male & hermaphrodite inflorescence 2016-08-14 and infructescence 2017-01-01:

[Pal Meir]

The little green men are getting fatter and fatter …

[Pal Meir]

[Phoenikakias]

On 31/12/2016, 8:17:59, Pal Meir said:

According to Henderson 2016 my R cochinchinensis should be renamed to R laosensis var. laosensis, and my plant α with hermaphrodite flowers seems to be quite rare (H. didn’t see any).

http://biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.258.2.3

Pal, any idea what can be those two specimens of Rhapis? Both have a low height of about 80 cm. First one

[Phoenikakias]

Second specimen