190 PRINCIPES [Vor-.41

Principes,4l(4), 1997, pp. I90-l9l Wallichiadisticha in

JoHt'tDnel'{srrnrl Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gard,ens,Kew, Richnoncl, Surey, TW9 SAE, UK

Wallichia d.istichais an easily recognizedpalm now the construction of the dam has opened up that has been much prized as an ornamental. the area to agricultural development,and there is Never very frequent in cultivation, its scarcitv an excellent road that goes right to the border of probably reflects the difficulty in obtaining seed. at the Three PagodasPass. The upper It is the only memberof the and, indeed, part of the valley is an area of outstandingbeauty, of the tribe Caryoteaeto which it belongs,to have with varied topographyand an abundanceof karst its leavesarranged in two rows, i.e., distichously. limestone hills. Although some natural forest It is this unusual leaf arrangementthat makes it remains, much of the land accessiblefrom the such a handsomeand desirablepalm. road has been cleared for agriculture. Wallichia disticha was first described by Thom- Before we left Bangkok for Kanchanaburi we as Anderson inthe Journal ofthe Linnean Society, spent a morning in the Forest Herbarium of the Volume tl. in 1871. basedon materialcollected Royal Forest Department. While Sashalooked at in gorges from the Sikkim Himalaya. Kurz also the specimensof Phoenix, I went through the palm recorded the palm from Pegu in Burma, though collections.Mr. ThawatchaiWongparsert, of the there is some possible confusion here, as Kurz Saraburi Botanical Garden, who planned to look describedthe leavesas being arrangedin a one- after us on our short trip, introduced himself and third spiral rather than being distichous-a tris- draggedme awayfrom the dead specimensto show Herbarium's nurs- tichous Wallichia disticha would be desirable me a young palm in the Forest in Tung Yai indeed! W. disticha has also been recorded for ery nearby that he had collected in the northern part of Kan- (see Pei, S.-J. and Chen, S.-Y., Flora of Wildlife Sanctuary Province. The narrow praemorseindu- China: Palmae. 1991). There are very few her- chanaburi plicate leaflets proclaimed that the palm was barium collectionsof this most distinctive palm either a speciesof Arenga or of Wallichio, but the and, as is so often the case with palni herbarium leaflets were far too narrow for the palm to be W. specimens,most of these are of poor quality and siameuis, and the leaflet arrangementwas unlike lack important field notes.That the leavesare dis- that of any Arenga known to me and, although tichous,for example,is almost never mentioned, there were only three leaves, they seemedto be despiteits being such a striking and unusualfea- arrangeddistichously. I guessedthat it was prob- ture. ably W. disticha. Later, in the Forest Herbarium, In 1994, on my way to Brunei for field- January I looked more carefully at the material of Walli- work, I spent time in Thailand to have a few days chia and one collection, Larsenet al. 8965, clearly in the field with my student Sasha Barrow, who belongsto W. disticho. It was collectedin 1961 just was starting her monographicstudy o{ Phoe- by Kai Larsen, from southeastof Sai Yok, also in nix, to introduce her to the problems of making Kanchanaburi. goodpalm specimens.We planneda shortvisit up The following day we drove off to the valley of the valley of the Kwai Noi River in Kanchanaburi the River Kwai to Thong Pha Phum, stopping Province, the river made famous by the film whenever we saw Phoenix. The Phoenix here is 'oBridge on the River Kwai." It flows from north to for the most part a dwar{ shrubby species,always south, draining a large area of Thailand adjacent associatedwith limestone, but, despite this, it to the border with Myanmar (Burma). The upper seemsnot to grow on the tops of the limestone reachesof the river have been dammed to form a hills, but more at the base, or in open boulder large reservoir for generating electricity and pro- fields in dry deciduousforest. Which speciesit is viding water for irrigation. Until recently the upper yet to be determined.This is one of severalforms part of the Kwai Noi was rather inaccessible,but of Phoenix loureiri. t9e7l DRANSFIELD:WALLICHIA DISTICHA IN THAILAND

l. Wallichia d,isricha growing on a limestone hill near the Three Pagodas Pass, Thailand. 2. Close-up view of Wol,Iichia disticAa showing the distichous leaf bases. Photos: J. Dransfield.

On our secondday out, within sightofthe Three tions, both at the foot of limestonehills and nei- PagodasPass, we stoppedto look at a population ther floweringnor fruiting. of Phoenixon a travertineslope of a limestonehill, It thus seemsthat Wallichia distichaoccurs in and, almostimmediately found Wallichiadisticha, a relatively large area, stretching from Sikkim growingin dry deciduousforest on limestoneat southwardsto Thailand, to at least l4o north. It the baseof the hill. Unfortunatelythe plantswere seemssurprising that up until now, this very dis- all young and there were no signs of flowersor tinctive palm should not have been identified as fruit; however,the distichousarrangement of the occurringin Thailand.It is alsoworth notingthat, Ieaves proclaimed its identity. The record is whereasthe palm in the north of its rangeseems vouchered by Dransf.eld et al. 7343 in the Her- to occur on sandstone,in the southof its rangeit barium of the Royal ForestDepartment (BKF) and occurson limestone. Kew. Later in the day we saw two more popula-

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