Acrocomia species

[Eric in Orlando]

I dug out a copy of Gentes herbarum, Article 39 which covered Acrocomia. This was written by L.H. Bailey and is dated Sept. 30, 1941. It has a key of Acrocomia species. At that time Acrocomia was divided into 25 species. If anyone is willing, I can photocopy the paper so that someone with a scanner could scan it and post it as a link. Its interesting from a historical perspective.

Here are some interesting observations from this paper;

-It mentions A. odorata, growing in moist woods in Rio S. Lourenco, Matto-Grosso, Brazil. It is neat as it is an unarmed species, no spines. grows to 5m tall with unarmed leaves to 2m, very small fruit 2cm or less. Wonder if this one is in cultivation?

-Acrocomia subinermis from Cuba, between Cruz de Piedra and Guatoa. This one is lightly armed or spineless, to 10m tall

-A hasseli isn't mentioned, no mention of a trunkless species back then

-Back then it says that many Acrocomia brought into Florida had no record of where they were introduced. And that many of the cultivated trees probably crossed and bore hybrid fruit. Also, Bailey wrote that he "did not know of any genus in which names of trees in cultivation and of specimens in herbaria are more meaningless; not even Sabal can match it. "

-He wrote that Acrocomia are much planted in Florida and to an extent in New Orleans and southern California.

-It was believed that E.H. Hart was probably responsible for the introduction of seed of Acrocomia after settling in FL after the Civil War (he died in 1898). The seeds probably came from the West Indies and that these trees were intorduced to the islands from other countries. Later introductions were made by Reasoner Brothers Nursery. They had Acrocomia (A. havanensis) listed in their catalog as early as 1888-89. in 1910, A. totai made its first appearance in the catalog.

-I just checked the Kew site and now A. media is listed as a valid species once again so now there are 3 accepted species

-Acrocomia was divided into 2 sections

Tectocomia- species retained boots or leaf bases

Sentocomia- species with clean trunks

Here is a list of the species

Section Tectocomia;

antioquiensis

belizensis

eriocantha

glaucophylla

hospes

mexicana

mokayayba

panamensis

sclerocarpa

vinifera

Section Sentocomia;

aculeata

armentalis

chunta

fusiformis

ierensis

intumescens

karukerana

media

microcarpa

odorata

pilosa

quisqueyana

subinermis

totai

wallaceana

[bubba]

Eric,Old Palm materials like this are truly fascinating and I would greatly appreciate it if you would print these items or in some way make them available.The Reasoner&Co. name is one that was seen often in Dr.Nehrling's works.The History of Palm introductions to the various area's of Florida,California and other places is outstanding stuff.Thank you

[Breadfruit Bill]

Eric, I have a scanner and am more than willing to scan and post this document here in this thread... PM me for an address to mail it to!

[merrill]

Many Thanks to Eric and William:

Eric, The variability you describe is fascinating. It is hard to imagine such variation all in three spp., but OTOH, there are other cases where there are vast differences w/in one spp. In any case, mankind seems to have lost track of these fascinating lines, whatever the taxonomy says.

William, look forward with great anticipation to your expression of very helpful generosity.

Best Wishes,

merrill

[Eric in Orlando]

I will make the photocopy today and get it in the mail. It is about 40 pages or so.

[SubTropicRay]

Great stuff Eric, thanks.

[Eric in Orlando]

I'm really curious about the spineless species.

Also, one of them (I will have to look up which) was described as having ascending leaves, they were upright, almost like a "shuttlecock:.

And I never saw an Acrocomia that retained their leafbases as an adult palm.

[John]

Hi Eric- Faith here - I just returned from my expidition with the Fairchild folks to Kosrae & Pohnpei - I'll post some photos when I get them sorted out - Right now, I'm not sure if it's yesterday or tomorrow - Anyway, I hauled out the 'Supplement to Palms of the World' 1976 - Langlois - & didn't find the 2 species you mentioned - but I did find 'Acanthococos' described by Barbosa Rodrigues in 1900- it is said to have a distributuion in Brazil & Paraguay. It is described to be similar to acrocomia & Bactris with a subterranian trunk - It was first collected by Dr.Emiles Hassler in 1900 - a dwarf palm known locally as 'careta' found in Eastern Paraguay & named by him as Acanthococos hassleri. There's more, so haul out your copy & read along.

[Eric in Orlando]

Thanks for the info, I will have to get the copy out of the library here and look this up. I have never seen A. hassleri.

Thats why it wasn't mentioned in the Acrocomia paper, it was formerly in a different genus.

[Gileno Machado]

Very interesting, Eric.

Faith:

Here's a picture of the dwarf Acrocomia hassleri growing at Lorenzi's collection, São Paulo. This individual must be some 40 cm tall...

I guess this species has been lumped into Acrocomia genus but here in Brazil we still consider Acanthococos emensis as a valid species (and as a separate genus). I've been looking for seeds myself but I've heard they are rarely found in habitat now...

Looking forward to your pictures from Oceania soon...

[Eric in Orlando]

Gileno,

thanks for those photos, looks like a nice palm.

Are they very spiny? Do you know of a source for seeds?

[Breadfruit Bill]

Ok, it took me an evening to get this all cut, scanned, formatted, uploaded, hosted blah blah blah... I'm dying to read this prelim!

Stand by for the scan docs....

[Breadfruit Bill]

I made them big enough to read

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

You may want to print these if they are too BIG for your screen...

[Breadfruit Bill]

Or you could get a big enough screen to properly view Palmtalk...

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

I hope we don't get busted by the © police.

[Breadfruit Bill]

[Breadfruit Bill]

This was a fun project!

[Breadfruit Bill]

Dats all folks!

[Peter]

Thanks guys-very interesting reading. Now, where can we get some of these exotic Acrocomia's?

[Eric in Orlando]

Thanks for scanning and posting the pages!

[mike in kurtistown]

What a wonderful way to get a rare palm paper. Of course, someone had to do a lot of work. Thanks, guys.

Just don't make my mistake and try to save the thumbnail images, they will be unreadable. Enlarge, and then save.

Mike

[Eric in Orlando]

If there is any interest I have copies of the following Gentes Herbarum (and any interest in someone scanning them again), some of the names are oudated but thats what was current when these were published;

VOL. III, Fasc. VI December 1934- Sabal

VOL. IV, Fasc. III February 1937- Erythea and Brahea

VOL. IV, Fasc. I September 1936- Arecastrum and Butia

VOL. III, Fasc. VII April 1935- Roystonea

VOL. IV, FASC X. Dec. 1940- Colpothrinax, Acoelorraphe/Paurotis, Rhyticocos, Corozo, Euterpe, Sabal princeps

VOL. IV, Fasc. V April 1938- Calyptrogyne, Calyptronoma, Bactrides, Copernicia in Jamaica

VOL. IV, Fasc. IV March 1938- Thrinax

VOL. IV, Fasc. II December 1936- Washingtonia

VOL. III, Fasc. VIII July 1935- Archontophoenix (only 2 species listed then)

[Tala]

I like how this singles out the Acrocomia grown in Fl., and attributes them to Reasoner's as far back as 1880's. I'm gonna read thru these this wk and see if I can locate what I have growing here as totai. From the key it comes out correct but there is a lot of terminology in here that is no longer used for nomenclature purposes anyway.

And yeah many many thanks to those who contributed this, just skimmed some but a fascinating read already.

[edbrown_III]

Tala,

This is interesting about the A. totai, it also identifies A.totai in Florida as identical to what was found in Panama

What we are calling A. totai in 2008 is what has been selected out from several freezes that have occured since th article was published in the 30's Hard freezes in the 40. 57, and devasting freezesin 62, 83, 85, and 89. The furtherest norht Acrocomia I have heard of was Dough Keene's in Deland. One of the chapter members spoke of one at the Swisher estate in Jax but it is long gone and wastnt around in the 80s. There is no telling where these plants originated ffrom . Believe me I was looking for these plants in 85 but couldnt find any northern ones except for the ones in vicinity of Doug Keenes place. The Dade city ones are further south I reckon. Dave Best also had some growing in Orlando -- I dont know the age of the trees at Leu perhaps from some of these.

Theres an interesting parallel thread on the spanish language forum about Acrocomia they dont really speciate it. They seem to think only one species --- I tried to bait them with a few questions but didnt get any deviation from their convential wisdom of one species.

I have three adult specimens from PR , Mexico and southern Brasil -- I am seeing what they look as adults after many years. The Brasilian one I thought might be a A. totai as it was from the southern range is starting to fill out and be massive as an adult. It was very narrow diameter as a small one. THe Mexican Acocomia is stouter but not significantly from the rest. I guess all of this makes me a closet clumper .

Best regards,

Ed

[Eric in Orlando]

Ed, the 2 big A. aculeata and the tall A. totai are both post '89 freeze. There was a A. aculeata and 2 A. totai that both survived the freeze but they died afterwards from ganoderma. The 2 A. aculeata sprouted in situ from seeds in spring 1993. The A. totai was from seeds from the dead parent that also sprouted on its own. This is the one that has seeded the adjacent neighborhood with specimens that have sprouted since the early and mid '90s.

I had previoulsy mentioned it that I noticed that A. media is once again listed as a valid species on the Kew checklist. This is the Puerto Rican native.

[Eric in Orlando]

I just looked it up and now Kew has listed Gastrococos back as Acrocomia crispa so now there are 4 valid species. Wonder if any more will be restored?

http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/qsearch.do;jsessi...1E0F6AE39D736AF

[Tala]

I asked Andrew Henderson about these, he said he was absolutely sure there are more than the (at that time) two species but someone needs to go and do the field work to justify it. If only I were twenty - ok thirty yrs younger ... Just on our own observations here there is a marked diff. between what is known as aculeata and what we call totai. BTW I drove by the tall one just outside the Leu entrance, my goodness that thing is remarkable. Much much taller than mine and the shortness of the fronds and compact crown are a dead giveaway for totai. How long do you suspect it's been there? Germ. off bird-scattered Leu seed correct?

I have totai palms sprouting like mad here, seems like 4 yrs in the ground is just right for them. Several I dug up & potted this summer forced out an additional palm from the seed. Have about 20 or so now, most all survived the digging. Bernie once told me you can dig them out fine until pinnate leaves show up, then all bets are off.

Ed I don't think there any totai left at Dave's old place, altho' there are several tall seeding Archonto Illawarra's. As you prob. know my palm is from Doug's place so if nothing else I can push on that legacy some. I did note the mention of spines at the tip of the infl. bracht on the old description, again this is something that definitely jibes w/ my palm. Will have more after I read some.

Edited October 10, 2008 by Tala

[Eric in Orlando]

I asked Andrew Henderson about these, he said he was absolutely sure there are more than the (at that time) two species but someone needs to go and do the field work to justify it. If only I were twenty - ok thirty yrs younger ... Just on our own observations here there is a marked diff. between what is known as aculeata and what we call totai. BTW I drove by the tall one just outside the Leu entrance, my goodness that thing is remarkable. Much much taller than mine and the shortness of the fronds and compact crown are a dead giveaway for totai. How long do you suspect it's been there? Germ. off bird-scattered Leu seed correct?

I have totai palms sprouting like mad here, seems like 4 yrs in the ground is just right for them. Several I dug up & potted this summer forced out an additional palm from the seed. Have about 20 or so now, most all survived the digging. Bernie once told me you can dig them out fine until pinnate leaves show up, then all bets are off.

Ed I don't think there any totai left at Dave's old place, altho' there are several tall seeding Archonto Illawarra's. As you prob. know my palm is from Doug's place so if nothing else I can push on that legacy some. I did note the mention of spines at the tip of the infl. bracht on the old description, again this is something that definitely jibes w/ my palm. Will have more after I read some.

That one sprouted around '95. Unless there was one back in the neighborhood it was probably from seed from the Leu specimen. Back then before the new entrance building was built that was an old orange grove and there was a A. totai back there. It survived '89 but died a year or so later from ganoderma.

[John Case]

What!? The big screen wasn't available?!

Or you could get a big enough screen to properly view Palmtalk...

[Celso Lago-Paiva]

Thanks for scanning and posting the pages!

Dats all folks!

Thanks, PiousPalms, for the images! I will paste here the pages of the second article of Liberty Hide bailey abou Acrocomia: Bailey, L. H. & H. E. Moore, Jr. 1949. Extensions in the gru-grus: Acrocomia. P. 135-148 in: Palms uncertain and new. Gentes Herbarum: occasional papers on the kind of plants 8(2):92–205..