5164

5(3): Timber trees; Lesser-known timbers

Cyrtostachys Blume

Bull. Sci. Phys. Nat. Néerl. 1: 66 (1838).

PALMAE

x = 16; C. renda: 2n = 32

Lipstick palm, scarlet palm, sealing wax palm (En). Indonesia: pinang merah (general). Malaysia: pinang raja (general). Thailand: mak daeng.

Cyrtostachys comprises about 8 species. The majority are found in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with 1 in western Malesia.

Laths from the outer part of the trunk of C. renda are used locally to support Nypa leaf thatch. Its wood is also used for flooring and piling. The larger New Guinean species are applied in local house building.
C. renda is a commercial ornamental plant valued for its attractive crown-shafts which are usually bright orange-red and occasionally crimson or scarlet.

Cyrtostachys wood is used on a local scale only. About 1990 the price of C. renda in local nurseries in Malaysia and Indonesia was about US$ 15-20 for a 2 m high plant.

The wood of the periphery of the stem of Cyrtostachys is hard.

Unarmed, monoecious, pleonanthic, solitary or clustered, small to medium-sized palms, up to 20(-30) m tall; pole straight, slender, unbranched, up to 30 cm in diameter, conspicuously ringed with leaf scars, often with a mass of adventitious roots at base. Leaves pinnate; sheaths tubular, forming a well-defined crown-shaft; leaflets entire, single-fold. Inflorescence below the leaves, bisexual, branched to 3 orders; peduncle very short; prophyll enclosing the inflorescence until leaf fall; peduncular bract completely enclosing the inflorescence; rachillae bearing spiral, protandrous triads of 2 male flowers and 1 female flower borne in pits. Flowers globose; sepals 3; petals 3, united in the basal third. Male flower with 9-15 anthers, filaments connate at base. Female flower with a superior, 1-locular ovary with a single ovule, stigmas short, recurved. Fruit a broadly to narrowly ellipsoid drupe, usually black, smooth; mesocarp thin, with abundant fibre bundles. Seed globose or ellipsoid; endosperm homogeneous. Seedling with adjacent-ligular germination; eophyll bifid with narrow lobes.
Cyrtostachys is the only genus of the subtribe Cyrtostachydinae which belongs to the tribe Areceae of the subfamily Arecoideae, and is due for a taxonomic revision as the status of most of the eastern Malesian species is unclear.

Most Cyrtostachys species are found in lowland rain forest, up to 500 m altitude. C. renda is characteristically found in peat-swamp forest at low altitude, where it may form a conspicuous component of the vegetation.

C. renda is propagated mainly by suckers that appear at the base of mature plants, as it grows very slowly from seed. Seeds remain viable for only 2-3 weeks. It can also be grown in pots.

Commercial collecting of C. renda from the wild is rare. It is conserved via extensive cultivation, but natural populations seem to be seriously threatened by destruction of their habitat. All other Cyrtostachys species appear to be rare endemics.

It is very unlikely that the wood of Cyrtostachys will be increasingly used. C. renda will probably continue to be an important ornamental palm.

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[1038]Smitinand, T., 1980. Thai plant names. Royal Forest Department, Bangkok. 379 pp.
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L.G. Saw

Cyrtostachys brassii
Cyrtostachys microcarpa
Cyrtostachys phanerolepis
Cyrtostachys renda

Saw, L.G., 1998. Cyrtostachys Blume. In: Sosef, M.S.M., Hong, L.T. and Prawirohatmodjo, S. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(3): Timber trees; Lesser-known timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea

The following species in this genus are important in this commodity group and are treated separatedly in this database:
Cyrtostachys brassii
Cyrtostachys microcarpa
Cyrtostachys phanerolepis
Cyrtostachys renda