Chelyocarpus Dammer, Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Berlin-Dahlem 7: 395 (1920)

Primary tabs

https://media.e-taxonomy.eu/palmae/photos/palm_tc_38892_3.jpg

Distribution

Map uses TDWG level 3 distributions (https://github.com/tdwg/wgsrpd)
Bolivia present (World Checklist of Arecaceae)B
Brazil North present (World Checklist of Arecaceae)B
Colombia present (World Checklist of Arecaceae)B
Ecuador present (World Checklist of Arecaceae)B
Peru present (World Checklist of Arecaceae)B
Four species in Amazonian Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and western Colombia. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Discussion

  • Chelyocarpus has very characteristic distinct carpels and deeply divided palmate leaves. The genus was initially set apart because of the corky-warted surface of the fruit of the type species, which so resembled a turtle’s carapace as to suggest the generic name. Dammer commented on the dimerous or two-parted perianth of C. ulei, but without flowers to examine thought his material perhaps atypical. More complete collections, however, have shown that the perianth is normally dimerous in the species. Within Chelyocarpus, there is apparent simplification of the inflorescence. There are also modifications of the flower that suggest directions of evolution toward connation and reduction in the perianth, elaboration of the androecium, and
    reduction of the gynoecium: characters that are found in therelated genus Itaya and in the more specialised group of generathat includes Thrinax and related taxa. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Diagnosis

  • Solitary or clustered short-stemmed or creeping hermaphroditic fan palms of humid tropical rain forests of Amazonia and western Colombia; leaves often discolorous, often divided by deep and shallow splits; petiole base not split; fruit sometimes corky-warted. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Biology And Ecology

  • The species occur at low elevations in areas of high rainfall. It is particularly interesting to note that the distribution of these species corresponds with three of nine refugia — Madeira-Tapajos, East Peruvian, Choco — postulated by Haffer (1969) as regions where rain forest persisted during drier epochs of the Pleistocene. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Common Name

  • Not recorded. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Etymology

  • Chelys — tortoise, carpos — fruit, in reference to the cracked surface of the fruit that resembles a tortoise carapace. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Uses

  • Not recorded. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Description

  • Moderate, solitary or clustered, unarmed, pleonanthic, hermaphroditic palms. Stem erect or procumbent (Chelyocarpus repens), slender, naked except for fibrous remains of leaf sheaths below the crown, closely ringed with narrow leaf scars. Leaves spreading, induplicate, palmate, or shortly costapalmate (C. chuco), sheath fibrous, not splitting opposite the petiole, densely velvety-hairy, golden-brown when young, with a prominent fibrous ligule on each side of the petiole at its apex, this disintegrating into loose fibres in age; petiole elongate, unarmed, not splitting basally, adaxially channelled basally, becoming angled distally, abaxially rounded, margins thin; adaxial hastula often large, erect, deltoid, abaxial hastula narrow, ridge-like; blade flat, thin, divided along the central abaxial fold to well beyond the middle or nearly to the base, each half further divided adaxially into paired or irregularly grouped, rather wide, single-fold segments (C. chuco), or divided to the base into elongate, wedge-shaped, many-fold segments, these again divided into several acute or very briefly bifid, single-fold, 1-ribbed segments, midribs raised abaxially, blade strongly discolorous or concolorous, transverse veinlets evident. Inflorescences interfoliar, pendulous, branching to 1 or 2 orders; peduncle flattened, short; prophyll flattened, tubular, with long fibrous beak, shortly 2-keeled laterally, surfaces and margins covered in dense soft tomentum; peduncular bracts 3(–4), like the prophyll but lacking keels; rachis flattened; first-order branches several, recurved, flattened, basally adnate to the rachis, each subtended by a prominent rachis bract similar to those on the peduncle but progressively smaller distally, at least the lower first-order branches bearing a membranous prophyll (C. chuco), or the lower rachillae sometimes fasciculate or subfasciculate on short branches but the bracts subtending first-order branches, small and not like those on the peduncle; rachillae usually adnate for some distance above an acute, sometimes elongate subtending bract and bearing spirally arranged, small to prominent, acute bracts each subtending a sessile or shortly pedicellate flower. Flowers (at least in C. ulei) strongly scented; sepals 2 or 3, distinct or briefly connate basally, or 4, distinct, and slightly imbricate; petals like the sepals; stamens 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, one opposite each sepal, remainder opposite the petals, filaments erect, distinct, fleshy, thick and broad below, ± abruptly narrowed at the tip, anthers exserted at anthesis, dorsifixed at the middle, bifid at apex and base, latrorse; carpels 3 or 2, rarely 1 or 4, follicular, style short, somewhat recurved, stigma papillose, ovule hemianatropous, attached adaxially at the base, an aril present and basally fused to the locular wall. Pollen ellipsoidal, ± bi-symmetric, or with slight to obvious asymmetry, less frequently, oblate triangular; aperture a distal sulcus or, infrequently, a trichotomosulcus; ectexine tectate, coarsely perforate or foveolate-reticulate, aperture margin finely perforate; longest axis 22–36 µm [3/4]. Fruit usually developing from only 1 carpel, globose with eccentrically apical stigmatic remains; epicarp smooth or coarsely corky-warted, mesocarp thick, dry, endocarp membranous. Seed basally attached, globose, hilum basal, circular, raphe slightly impressed along the length of the seed and with ascending branches, endosperm homogeneous; embryo below or above the middle opposite the raphe. Germination remote-tubular; eophyll bifid. Cytology: 2n = 36 ± satellite. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Anatomy

  • Leaf (Uhl 1972c), roots (Seubert 1997), floral (Uhl 1972b). (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Fossil record

  • No generic records found. (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Relationships

  • Chelyocarpus is moderately supported as sister to all remaining Cryosophileae (Roncal et al. 2008). (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Taxonomic accounts

  • Moore (1972) and Kahn and Mejia (1988). (Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms)A

Use Record

  • Chelyocarpus Dammer: Comestible, ceremonial, ritual, decorativo. Las hojas de la palma sirven para elaborar coronas de fiesta (Okabogata, antes era llamada Ooma por los Durani) y bandas para los brazos. Los frutos (Gabaumo) son como coquitos, pequeños, de sabor similar al coco (duro), se comen generalmente cuando están suaves. (Mondragón, M.L., and R. Smith 1997: Bete Quiwiguimamo. Salvando el bosque para vivir sano)
    Use CategoryUse Sub CategoryPlant PartHuman GroupEthnic GroupCountry
    Human FoodFoodFruitsIndigenousHuaoraniEcuador
    CulturalRitualEntire leafIndigenousHuaoraniEcuador
  • Tessmanniophoenix Burret: Se utiliza su hoja para techar. (Guallart, J.M. 1968: Nomenclatura Jibaro-Aguaruna de Palmeras en el Distrito de Cenepa. (as Tessmanniophoenix Burret))

Bibliography

    A. Dransfield, J., Uhl, N., Asmussen, C., Baker, W.J., Harley, M. & Lewis, C. 2008: Genera Palmarum. The evolution and classification of palms
    B. World Checklist of Arecaceae