Iriartella setigera

[amazondk]

I found these palms growing in the understory of our country place last weekend.  The only match I could come up is the Iriatella setigera in my American Palm Handbook.  They were all over the place in the primary forest and are a handsome plant.  Does anyone have a different idea of what it may be.

Thanks, dk

[Tyrone]

Don, I looked it up on the net, and there isn't much info, but I think your ID sounds right. When I saw the species name, I thought, what the heck is that name. I'd never heard of it before.

This is the sort of species that RLR would have probably said, "What???  You have that species? " He probably would have ID'ed it too. He was a wealth of knowledge.

It's a nice little species, but I wonder if it has any cold tolerance.

regards

Tyrone

[amazondk]

Tyrone,

I believe that they call this species paxiubinha around here, which means a little paxiuba.  The paixuba common in our area is Socratea exorrhiza.  In fact the leafs look very similar.  I doubt that the tree is has much of any cold tolerance as it is found only in low land forest.  I actually dug up a little Socratea growing wild in the condominum where we have a lot here in Manaus yesterday.  I hope that it makes it.  The leaf shape is the same as the palm in the pictures.  But, it has stilt roots and this one does not.  I think that the socratea is also a very nice looking palm.

dk

[edbrown_III]

Heres a post of one on the Amazon trip I took last Oct.

Larger from a distance in heavy forest. I had never seen these before so relied on Henderson to point out salient characteristics. Stilt roots arent really clear.  Mike Merrit religiously took photos and notes as well.

Best regards

Ed Brown

[paulgila]

thats a great little palm,don,& it doesn't lose its appeal as it gets older!

i'll take a few off yer hands if there are too many

[amazondk]

Paul,

I think it would be a nice addition to a landscape as well.  On our land there are a lot of them.  Maybe I can find some seeds to send in the future.

dk

[paulgila]

bitchen!

[gcyao]

The leaflets of Iriartella setigera has a velvety feel when you lightly touch them. I took pictures during our Amazon tour. Here is one.

[gcyao]

Sorry the picture didn't get through. This is my 1st post and whatever I tried didn't work!

[amazondk]

(gcyao @ Jul. 05 2007,11:22)

QUOTE

Sorry the picture didn't get through. This is my 1st post and whatever I tried didn't work!

I would love to see your picture.  Did you upload the image to photobucket or similar?  Once you do just copy and past the address in the image box.

thanks, dk

[Gileno Machado]

Don:

I've never tried these from seed but here's the description from Lorenzi's book:

"Solitary trunk, eventually clumping, 3-8 m tall and 2-4 cm in diameter, with a small conic and spiny system of aerial roots at the base. Pinate fronds in a single plan, in short number (6-8 contemporary). Petioles to 15-30 cm long, rachis to 40-90 cm and 5 to 9 pinae on each side, cuneate and to 20-40 cm long. Elipsoid fruits 1.5 cm orageish/red when mature.

Trunks employed as Zarabatana with the local indigenous tribes. Species from lowland eventually inundated sandy soils (campinarana). Local names: Paxiubinha, paxiubarana, ubim-do-igapó. Seed germination is considered as difficult and erratic, exceeding 6 months..."

Prof. Medeiros Costa once said that they thrive in extremely acidic soils, quite low pH. The pictures shown in the book are just like the one you've seen...

There's also a similar species growing in western Acre: Iriartella stenocarpa, a little shorter and more compact version, with smaller fruits.

[amazondk]

Thanks Gileno.  I will see if these seeds germinate.  I will be going to Bolivia near Acre in a week or so.  Maybe something will pop up there.  I don't know if I will have time to get out into the forest though.

dk

[gcyao]

I am going to the US tomorrow and will be back end of the month. I don't have time to learn how to solve this problem. Will post photos when I come back and learn how to.

[mike in kurtistown]

Hi Ed, George,

I just wanted my unique opportunity not to go to waste, and to get my personal photo record of as many species as possible. This required a lot of discipline sometimes, since it was hard to stop on the trail and pull out a notebook and make entries when others were leaving one behind. I'm still kicking myself for photos I failed to get.

Attached is my phot of Iriartella setigira. These were ubiquitous in the forest along the Rio Negro - we saw them on almost every walk. I only remember little ones like the one shown here. On the other hand, I only remember Iriartea at least 15 ft tall.

George, you might need to resize your photos so that they are less than 100K. I do it using Photoshop Elements. The procedure is not obvious, but is simple enough when learned.

Mike

[amazondk]

Mike nice picture.  Were you on one of those palm trips up the river here?  I really never had noticed this palm in the forest here, but then again there are a lot of things I had never noticed.  Since I will be spending a lot more time on our land up the river now I am sure I will find a lot more.  Unfotrunately the day I took these pictures the batteries in my camera had run out so I took the ones in the this thread with my cell phone.  The picture below is the tallest one I saw.  Once I get things organized on our land I am going to take a complete inventory of the forest on the area.  That is about 240 acres.  I want to find out exactly what species of trees grow there.  The forest where these pictures were taken is about 300 meters from the river on high ground with streams on both sides.  The non palm trees were mostly smaller in diameter reaching the most about  18 inches in diameter.   I imagine that as you get further from the river the trees will get bigger, probably having some specimens up to 36 to 48 inches in diameter.  Another very common palm in this area is the Oenocarpus bacaba and the Oenocarpus minor.   One thing that I am going to do on the land is modify the forest in certain areas in little clearings planting brazil nut trees and some other species to enrich the forest and bring in more game and birds.  As you look forward at the palm you see small diameter trees.  This is an area of secondary forest about 20 years old.  Many areas of forest around here where there area  a lot of brazil nut trees actually are the result of human influence by indigenous peoples.  They used the tree extensively as a source of food and enriched the forests around where they lived to their benefit.  Since there have been humans living along the Rio Negro for at least 5 to 6 thousand years the vegetation is much more anthropomorphic than many people would think.  Some of the most advanced pottery found along the river dates back 3,000 years or so.  I hope you had a good trip.

[gcyao]

Hi Don,

After unsuccesfully trying to reduce the image size with Photoshop, I decided to put up my I. setigera  photos in a website. After looking over some, I finally decided on Picasa. Unfortunately, this forum will not accept the URL format of images on Picasa! Finally, I downloaded the images (reduced in size already by Picasa) by saving into my computer and here is one of them.

This could be the same one as the one in Mike's photo. I must've forgotten to switch on my flash.

George Yao

Metro-Manila

[gcyao]

Another picture. This is a seedling.

[gcyao]

This one has a fruit stalk still attached. I recall taking photos of one with the fruits still on, but I can't seem to locate it. BTW, we collected the red fruits, but the seeds turned out to be not ripe enough.

[mike in kurtistown]

Good pictures, George. Mid October was apparently the end of the dry season along the Rio Negro. It didn't seem to be fruiting season for most palms, except maybe Geonomas. The seeds we found were either old or green (red) on the tree. I didn't have any luck with the immature red Iriartellas either.

[edbrown_3]

George,

Pictures bring back very fond memories of the visit. Good work on your note taking Mike, I thnk you for the photos as it helps me interpret the trip.

Anyone  going in October?

Best regards,

Ed