Sciencetific Name: Nenga pumila
Family Name: ARECACEAE

  • Caespitose, slender to moderate palm with stems sometimes stilt-rooted at the base, ca. 3-5 m long, (2) 3-6 (8) cm diam.; internodes to ca. 10 cm long, smooth, bright green to brown. Crownshaft elongate, cylindrical, ca. 35-80 cm long, only slightly swollen. Leaves to 7 in crown, leaf sheath ca. 25-60 cm long, pale green to greenish or yellowish-white; petiole ca. 4-50 cm long, to 1.5 cm diam. Leaflets to 30 on each side of the rachis, often drying dull reddish-brown; basal leaflets 1 costate, ca. 25-40 X 0.5-1.0 cm, long-acuminate; middle leaflets 2-3 costate, rarely 4 or 5 costate, ca. 35-70 X 2-4 (5) cm, long-acuminate; terminal leaflet pair 3-6 costate, rarely to 10 costate, ca. 20-40 X (1.5) 2-2.5 (4) cm, acuminate or slightly toothed at tips, sometimes joined to 4 cm at the base along the rachis, rarely more. Inflorescence infrafoliar, pendulous; prophyll ensiform or lanceolate, ca. (18) 20-25 (70) X 1.5-3.0 cm, drying chestnut-brown, caducous; peduncle ca. 1.5-3.0 (4) X 0.4-1.3 cm, flattened, glabrous; peduncular bract triangular to narrowly triangular, acuminate, ca. 8-15 X 8-10 mm, membranous; rachilla 2-4, usually 3, rarely to 6, ca. (15) 20-35 (50) cm long, to 6 mm thick, each subtended by a membranous triangular bract to 10 mm long. Staminate flower triangular, asymmetric, flexuous; sepals subequal, linear-subulate or very narrowly lanceolate, dorsally carinate, very flexuous, ca. 9-13 (20) mm long; petals elliptic to lanceolate, acuminate, straight to subfalcate, much shorter than sepals, ca. 5-7 (9) X 2-2.5 mm; filaments 1-2 mm long; anthers erect, linear, ca. 1.52 mm long, sagittate at base; pistillode conical, minute. Pistillate flower ovoid to subglobose, shorter than the staminate flower; sepals ca. 3-4 mm X 4 mm, petals as the sepals, or sometimes only slightly smaller; ovary ovoid to spherical, to 1.5 mm X 2 mm; stigma distinctly 3-lobed; staminodes indistinct. Infructescence pendulous, branches densely covered with fruits. Fruit ripening brick-red, oblong to oblong-ovoid or ovoid-ellipsoid, ca. (2) 2.43 X 1-1.5 (1.8) cm, beaked, tipped with a prominent 3-lobed stigma to 2 mm high, the lobes erect; epicarp often drying with shallow dimples. Seed broadly ovoid, ca. 10-15 mm X 7-9 mm, acuminate to spinescent at tip, base rounded-truncate, shallowly concave-intruded. (Fernando, E.S. 1983: A Revision of the Genus Nenga)