Chuniophoeniceae is a tribe of palms in subfamily Coryphoideae of plant family Arecaceae.
Description
Outwardly, the palms in the four genera of Chuniophoeniceae appear quite different.
Chuniophoenix are small palms from the forest understory with clustered stems;
Kerriodoxa is a squat, single-stemmed rainforest palm;
Nannorrhops is a sprawling desert palm with branching stems; and
Tahina is a massive solitary palm from exposed limestone outcrops.
They differ significantly in their flowering strategies, too.
Chuniophoenix species flower regularly throughout their lives (pleonanthic) and produce
Hermaphrodite flowers (rarely single gender);
Kerriodoxa are also pleonanthic, but are always
Dioecy;
Nannorrhops stems die after flowering (hapaxanthic), though the much-branched plant survives;
Tahina produces a massive terminal inflorescence and dies after fruiting. All Chuniophoeniceae have palmate leaves with induplicate folds and tubular
partially enclosing the flowers.
Taxonomy
Chuniophoeniceae is one of eight tribes in subfamily Coryphoideae.
The tribe is
Monophyly and closely related to tribes
Caryoteae,
Corypheae and
Borasseae, forming the syncarpous
clade.
In a previous classification, prior to the discovery of
Tahina, the three other genera were placed in tribe Corypheae, subtribe Coryphinae, together with the genus
Corypha.
Coincidentally,
Corypha and
Tahina both share the strategy of producing a massive display of flowers only once before dying.
The four genera have widely disjunct distributions. Chuniophoenix (3 spp.) is found in southern China and Vietnam; Kerriodoxa (1 sp., K. elegans) is restricted to peninsular Thailand; Nannorrhops (1 sp., N. ritchiana) is found in parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the southeastern Arabian Peninsula; while Tahina (1 sp., T. spectabilis) is Endemism to a small area of northwestern Madagascar.
Genera
|
|
-
Chuniophoenix hainanensis Burret - China: Hainan
-
Chuniophoenix nana Burret - China: Hainan and northern Vietnam
-
Chuniophoenix suoitienensis Henderson - Southern Vietnam
|
-
Kerriodoxa elegans, white backed palm
|
-
Nannorrhops ritchiana, the Mazari palm
|
-
Tahina spectabilis, the tahina palm
|
|
== Gallery ==
