Toddy Palm

Toddy Palm

Family: arecaceae

Characteristic features:

Habit : Trees to 40 m, unisexual.

Stem :obscurely hoped. Leaves simple, palmate, plicately multifid; leaflets 60-80, induplicate, apex acuminate; petiole stout, spinous, base broad, split. 

Inflorescence: Spadices interfoliar, large, dioecious, branched; peduncle sheathed with open spathes. 

Flowers : Male flowers small, clustered; bracts scaly, secund, overlapping. Sepals 3, oblong, to 3 mm. Petals 3, obovate-spathulate, to 2 mm. Stamens 6; anthers to 1 mm; pistillodes small, bristly. Female flowers large, globose. Perianth fleshy, accrescent. Sepals reniform, imbricate. Petals smaller, convolute. Ovary globose, entire or 3-or-1-cleft, 3-or 4-celled; ovules basal; stigmas 3, sessile, recurved; staminodes 6-9. 

Fruits: Drupes to 13 cm across, globose, yellow when ripe, with 1-3 compressed pyrenes.