The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts.
The Oceanian realm is one of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biogeographic realms, and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It is the smallest in land area of the WWF realms.
Lodoicea, commonly known as the sea coconut, coco de mer, or double coconut, is a monotypic genus in the palm family. The sole species, Lodoicea maldivica, is endemic to the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles. It formerly also was found on the small islets of St Pierre, Chauve-Souris and Ile Ronde, all located near Praslin, but had become extinct there for a time until recently reintroduced. The name of the genus, Lodoicea, may be derived from Lodoicus, one Latinised form of Louis, in honour of King Louis XV of France. Other sources say that Lodoicea is from Laodice, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba.
The Mascarene Islands or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their name derives from the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, who first visited them in April 1512. The islands share a common geologic origin in the volcanism of the Réunion hotspot beneath the Mascarene Plateau and form a distinct ecoregion with a unique flora and fauna.
Trachycarpus fortunei, the Chinese windmill palm, windmill palm or Chusan palm, is a species of hardy evergreen palm tree in the family Arecaceae, native to parts of China, Japan, Myanmar and India.
Vegetable ivory or tagua nut is a product made from the very hard white endosperm of the seeds of certain palm trees. Vegetable ivory is named for its resemblance to animal ivory. Species in the genus Phytelephas, native to South America, are the most important sources of vegetable ivory. The seeds of the Caroline ivory-nut palm from the Caroline Islands, natangura palm from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and the real fan palm, from Sub-Saharan Africa, are also used to produce vegetable ivory.
Odoardo Beccari was an Italian naturalist who discovered the titan arum, the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, in Sumatra in 1878. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Becc. when citing a botanical name.
Phoenix canariensis is a species of flowering plant in the palm family Arecaceae, native to the Canary Islands. It is a relative of Phoenix dactylifera, the true date palm. It is the natural symbol of the Canary Islands, together with the canary Serinus canaria. Mature P. canariensis are often used in ornamental landscaping and are collected and transplanted to their new planting location. A Canary Island date palm with 10 m (30 ft) of trunk is approximately 60 years of age.
Dypsis lutescens, also known as golden cane palm, areca palm, yellow palm, or butterfly palm, is a species of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae, native to Madagascar and naturalized in the Andaman Islands, Réunion, El Salvador, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, southern Florida, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands and the Leeward Antilles.
The palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus is one of two species of snout beetle known as the red palm weevil, Asian palm weevil or sago palm weevil. The adult beetles are relatively large, ranging between 2 and 4 centimetres long, and are usually a rusty red colour—but many colour variants exist and have often been classified as different species. Weevil larvae can excavate holes in the trunks of palm trees up to 1 metre (3.3 ft) long, thereby weakening and eventually killing the host plant. As a result, the weevil is considered a major pest in palm plantations, including the coconut palm, date palm and oil palm.
Clinostigma is a genus of flowering plant in the Arecaceae (palm) family, native to various islands in the western Pacific. It contains the following species:
Metroxylon is a genus of monoecious flowering plants in the Arecaceae (palm) family, consisting of seven species. They are native to Western Samoa, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Moluccas, the Carolines and Fiji in a variety of habitats, and cultivated westward to Thailand and Malaya.
Metroxylon warburgii commonly called the natangura palm, is a species of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. The specific epithet is in honor of Otto Warburg. The common name is from the Bislama name natanggura.
Veitchia is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae.
The Vanikoro flying fox, also known locally as basapine, is a species of bat in the family Pteropodidae. It has only been found in the Vanikoro island group located in the southern Solomon Islands. The species as a whole was originally known from just a few specimens collected sometime before 1930 but following surveys conducted on the island in the early 1990s did not detect this species again causing the Vanikoro flying fox to be listed as extinct. However, the species was rediscovered by a survey conducted in late 2014 which indicated a population in the high hundreds or low thousands and reported all observations.
Paschalococos disperta, the Rapa Nui palm or Easter Island palm, formerly Jubaea disperta, was the native cocoid palm species of Easter Island. It disappeared from the pollen record circa AD 1650.
Heterospathe is a monoecious genus of flowering plant in the palm family found in Oceania, where it is called sagisi palm. With 39 species, Heterospathe is named from a Greek combination of "various" and "spathe", which describes the two distinct bract types.
The emerald tree skink, sometimes (ambiguously) known as "green tree skink" or "emerald green skink". It is a non-threatened species although it not commonly seen but it is however, becoming more and more popular in the exotic pet trade. In the Philippines, it is called Tabili in the Cebuano vernacular.
Nypa fruticans, commonly known as the nipa palm or mangrove palm, is a species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only palm considered adapted to the mangrove biome. This species is the only member of the genus Nypa and the subfamily Nypoideae, forming monotypic taxa.
A tree in the Anacardiaceae family, Buchanania macrocarpa is native to an area in the southwest Pacific from the Solomon Islands to the northern Maluku Islands.
