Linospadix minor (W.Hill) Burret

Arecaceae

Burret, (M.)K.E. (1934) Notizblatt des Botanischen Gartens und Museums zu Berlin-Dahlem 12: 330.

Palm, Walking Stick; Walking Stick Palm; Palm, Minor Walking Stick; Minor Walking Stick Palm; Jak-arungle

Clustering small palm, 1-2 m tall. Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub 1-2 m tall but occasionally grows to 5 m.

Leaves consist of about 2-24 sessile leaflets each attached to the rhachis by a broad base. Leaflet blades about 18-23 x 1-6 cm. Terminal leaflets or segments wider at the base than any of the lateral leaflets. Major veins 4 or 5 per leaflet. Large, scattered, orbicular 'cells' visible with a lens. Leaflet apex praemorse, at least the broader ones.

Inflorescence about 38-80 cm long. Male and female flowers may appear to be in separate spikes but both are produced in each spike and the males shed following anthesis. Petals free in female flowers, fused in male. Stamens 7-10 in each male flower. Pollen white. Stigma bilobed.

Infructescence about 50-80 cm long. Fruits +/- cylindrical, red, orange or yellowish when ripe, about 8-18 x 3-8 mm. Calyx persistent at the base. Seeds about 12-15 x 2-3 mm, outer surface with fine longitudinal ribs. Embryo small, conical, about 1.5 mm long, located at the apex of the seed.

Seed germination time 40 to 364 days. Cataphylls 2 or 3, sheathing the stem. First pair of true leaves simple, pinnatisect and deeply bilobed. Veins parallel. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf compound with two broad-based, sessile, longitudinally veined leaflets or simple with a leaf of similar shape and texture. Leaf bases longitudinally striated and sheathing the stem.

Endemic to Queensland, occurs in CYP (McIlwraith Range) and NEQ (Mt Amos to Mission Beach). Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1300 m. Grows as an understory plant in a variety of well developed types of rain forest.

Cultivated as an indoor plant.

Distinguished from other species by the combination of the clustering habit, elongate-cylindrical fruit, irregularly segmented pinnate leaf and long petiole.

Kentia minor (W.Hill) F.Muell., Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 8: 235(1874). Bacularia minor (W.Hill) F.Muell., Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 11: 58(1879). Areca minor W.Hill, Report on the Brisbane Botanic Garden : 6(1874), Type: Queensland, Bellenden Ker Ranges, Hill s.n.; lecto: MEL 79769. Fide Dowe & Irvine ( 1997). Bacularia intermedia C.T.White, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 47: 83(1936), Type: Queensland, Mowbray River, 21 Jan. 1932, L.J. Brass 1975; holo: BRI.