(Last Modified On 10/24/2012)
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(Last Modified On 10/24/2012)
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Genus
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ACROCOMIA Mart.
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Common
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Gru-gru
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PlaceOfPublication
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Hist. Nat. Palm. 2:66, tt. -56, 57. 1824.
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Description
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Tall single-trunked monoecious pinnate-leaved trees, very spiny (one excep- tion) on- bole and petioles and cymbas and sometimes on fruits; spines long and slender, commonly flattened, expanded or cushioned at base, usually black or at least very dark, not stiffly attached: leaves very long, becoming horizontal'and drooping, with very many pairs of narrow hanging long-pointed pinnae, commonly glabrous on the upper surface but often indefinitely pubescent on upper surface; petioles prickly on outer convex surface: spadices infrafoliar, consisting of a long central axis and short mostly simple ~side-branches or rachillae; cymbas 2, outer or primary one soon caducous, inner one persistent and often hanging as a dead body- long after the fruit has fallen: staminate flowers 5-7 mm. long, occupying -most of the length of the rachillae' and partially sunken in it, stamens 6; -pistillate flowers at the angles on the base of the rachilla, about 10 mm. long, partly im- mersed, ovary 3-celled: fruit a drupe-like body size of a walnut, 1-seeded by abortion, olive-green or yellowish, 3-4 cm. transverse diameter, mesocarp muci- -laginous with fibers running through it (sometimes edible) and that dries to a cork-like interior that stoutly adheres to the nut; rind becoming thin and then brittle as an egg-shell; nutlet conical to almost globular, with 3 eyes or micropyles, albumen hard and continuous.
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Distribution
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About 25 species of conspicuous ornamental trees, often planted, native from Cuba and Mexico to Argentina and Paraguay.
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Note
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Acrocomia divides itself into two sections on the nature of the trunk, and although the differences are striking they are seldom brought out in photographs and have not been- recognized until recently. In Section Tectocomia, to which the single Panama species belongs, the bole is covered with broad petiole-bases on whi'ch most of the spines are attached; these bases or boots remain for several or many years, finally rotting away and leaving a naked bole with deep notch-like ring, or steps, most of the spines disappearing with them. In Section Sentocomia the trunk is soon divested of the caducous petioles; the bole then is marked by shallow rings intervening between circling rows of spines.
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