Pigafetta (PROSEA)
Introduction |
Pigafetta (Blume) Becc.
- Protologue: Malesia 1: 89 (1877).
- Family: Palmae
- Chromosome number: x= 14; 2n= 28
Vernacular names
- Pigafetta palm (En).
Origin and geographic distribution
Pigafetta probably comprises 2 species occurring in Sulawesi, the Moluccas and the western half of New Guinea. Both are occasionally planted in South-East Asia and rarely elsewhere.
Uses
The smooth shiny trunk of P. elata is used as supports for traditional houses and rice barns in Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, as rats cannot climb up it. When the soft core is removed the trunks are also used as relatively cheap conduits in rice fields; split poles can serve as boards for flooring.
Pigafetta is planted as an ornamental. Boiled young leaves can be scraped and subsequently split to produce sewing-thread. The seeds are eaten by the local people in Tana Toraja.
Production and international trade
The trunk of Pigafetta is used on a local scale only.
Properties
Peripheral wood of Pigafetta is very hard and durable but apt to split.
Botany
Armed, dioecious, pleonanthic, solitary, large palms up to 50 m tall; pole straight, slender, green or greenish-brown with conspicuous grey rings, often with abundant adventitious roots at base. Leaves pinnate, distinctly curved; sheath splitting, distally armed; leaflets many, single-fold, acuminate. Inflorescences borne between the leaves, solitary, branched to 2 orders. Male flowers in pairs; calyx very shallowly 3-lobed; corolla exceeding the calyx, tubular at base, with 3 valvate lobes; stamens 6, borne at the mouth of the corolla tube, filaments connate. Female flowers solitary; corolla divided almost to the base; ovary superior, incompletely 3-locular with 1 ovule in each cell, stigmas 3, reflexed. Fruit a small, ovoid, 1-seeded, drupe covered with scales. Seed with homogeneous endosperm with shallow depressions, attached basally. Seedling with adjacent-ligular germination; eophyll bifid, with very narrow leaflets; two scale leaves are produced before the true laminate leaves appear.
Growth of P. elata is fast; 3-year-old palms raised from seed attained 7 m in height, 15-year-old ones are 20 m or more. In Sulawesi it flowers in September and October. In Bogor (Indonesia) 12-year-old trees planted from seed attained 15 m in height and had fruited 15 times.
Pigafetta is the only genus within the subtribe Pigafettinae of the tribe Calameae within the subfamily Calamoideae . Its relationships within the tribe are uncertain. Very recently it was suggested that the genus probably comprises 2 species, not 1. They differ most strikingly in the colour and form of the petioles and rachises, P. elata having dark coloured and densely spiny ones, P. filaris showing pale, white powdered and sparsely spiny ones.
Ecology
Pigafetta grows as a pioneer in secondary habitats in well-drained, hilly or montane areas, at 300-1500 m altitude. It may be abundant along forest edges and grows on old landslides, old lava flows, ridge tops and river banks; it also tends to colonize abandoned cultivated fields.
Silviculture P. elata can be propagated by seed, which should be sown as soon as possible after harvest as it loses viability extremely quickly, possibly within a few days. The seed is comparatively small and germinates between 10 days and 1 year. Seedlings require constant moisture, high light intensities and protection from wind.
Genetic resources and breeding
Since 1973 the Botanical Garden at Bogor (Indonesia) has distributed P. elata seed all over the world. An important stand of trees has been conserved in the Sibolangit Botanic Garden (North Sumatra), but the stand probably no longer exists. Pigafetta is sought after by collectors because of its large stature, fast growth and rather isolated botanical position.
Prospects
The local use of Pigafetta wood for construction will probably remain important. Both species have potential as an ornamental.
Literature
70, 229, 230, 284, 286, 288, 325, 436, 499, 502, 506, 731, 798, 983, 1041, 1059, 1110, 1176.