64 PRINCIPES [Vol. 3 The Status of Palm * Hanor-l E. Moone, Jn.

It may be well, at the outsetof a con- , some accounts dating back to sideration of palm taxonomy, to define Greek civilization. Few palms were the term taxonomy. Briefly, it concerns known to the ancients. however. and the identification, naming, and classifi- even in 1753 Linnaeus wrote about only cation of plants (or animals). Identifi- nins-hssa Catechu (the betel palm), cation is the determination of a as Borassusflabellit'er (the toddy palm of being identical with or similar to another ), Rotang (a and already known plant or, if all known palm), Caryota urens (an Indian fish- possibilities are eliminated, its determi- tail palm) , Chamaerops humilis (the nation as new to science. Naming in- only palm native in Europe) , Cocosnu' volves the determination of the correct cilera (the coconut), Corypha umbracu' name of a known plant according to the tilera (the talipot palm of India), and nomenclatural system accepted inter- two date palms, Phoenix dactylifera, or nationally, so we may have a means of the cultivated date, and the wild date referring to the plant. Classification is which he called El,ate sylaestris, btft the placing of a plant or group of plants which we know today as Phoenix sylaes' in categories within the framework of tris. Linnaeus depended largely on a mastersystem which tries to show rela- earlier accountsfor his study-those of tionships among the various components Rheedewho wrote o{ the Malabar coast of the plant kingdom. Ideally, all the in India, of Rumphius, whose Het Am- techniques of the science of botany boinscheKrui.d,-Boek or Herbarium Am- should be used in the identification, boinense published in 174I-1755 des- naming, and classification of plants- cribed palms and many other plants of morphology and anatomy (the study of the Moluccas and adjacent areas, and the external and internal structure of a of other writers who recorded botanical plant), cytology and genetics (the study information noted in their travels. of cell and reproductive mechanisms As more and more parts of the world and of inheritance), physiology (the 'rvereexplored by personswho collected study of plant functions), paleobotany and cataloguedits plant resources,the (the study of plants now mostly extinct list of palms increased. In the early but preservedin the fossil record). nineteenth century a Dutch botanist, Having very generally defined taxon- C. L. Blume, collected and wrote about omy, we may be better able to appreciate palms of the East Indies; Baron von the present status of the taxonomy of Humboldt gave accountsof American palms by tracing in outline the history palms; William Griffith, an English- of the study of palms. Modern taxonomy man in the employ of the East India goes back to 1753 when Linnaeus gave Company, published fine studies of the us a system of naming plants that was Indian palms; Liebmann, a Dane, col- easy to understand and to use. Before lected them in Mexico. Thus, using the that time, travelers and early botanists experienceof these men, Von Martius, or herbalists had written about many who had spent two years in Brazil him- self, was able to produce between 1829 * Presented at the Palm Conference. Fairchild Tropical Garden, April lB. 1958. and 1850 a monumentalthree volume lesel MOORE: TAXONOMY 65

work on the natural history of palms, many of which duplicate one another in the Historia Naturd.lis Palmarum, in one or more ways), which he' accounted for those species But despitetwo centuriesof work, our then known, a number small when com- knowledgeof palms is painfully incom- pared with the total today. plete. Most palms have been described In the latter part of the nineteenth from herbarium specimensbrought from century, much important work was done far parts of the world to botanicallabo- with palms, principally by R. H. C. C. ratories and museumshere and abroad. Scheffer from the botanic garden at These specimenscould give but part of Buitenzorg, Java (now Bogor, Indo- the whole story, for few botanists were nesia). Hermann Wendland from Han- so fortunate as to study palms in the over, Germany, J. Barbosa Rodrigues, field as well as in the laboratory and J. W. H. Trail, and O. Drude on palms thus to provide us with more complete of Brazil, and Odoardo Beccari of Italy accounts. on palms from the islands of the Pacific This brings us to the presentstatus of and continental Asia. From these ac- palm taxonomy. Today, as a result of countsand from the study o{ dried speci- the exploration of the world's tropics, mens of palms stored at the Royal Bo- we have a permanentrecord in the form tanic Garden,Kew, England, Sir Joseph of dried specimens,incomplete as they Hooker was able to write another study may be, representing some 2,600 or of palms (in Bentham and Hooker f., more different speciesof palms as op- Cenera Plantarum.) in 1883, this time posed to only 300 that can be studied dealing comprehensivelywith the genera more intensivelyfrom plantsnow known as they were then understood.Following in cultivation. These spe,cimenshave him, Otto Drude wrote a similar but less been studied by various botanists, we detailed study for Engler and Prantl, have names for the speciesthey repre- Die natiir lichen P t'Ianz ent' a,milie n sent, and we have been able to fit these (18Be) . species into genera, the genera into From the beginning of the twentieth tribes, the tribes into subfamilies,giving century to the present, such men as us the outline, though still a very im- Beccari in Italy, Max Burret in Berlin, perfect one, of a systemor hierarchy of C. X. Furtado in Singapore,A. Dugand palm classification. We have, in effect, "bureau in Colombia, Brother L6on in Cuba, a sort of of standards" for the O. F. Cook, L. H. Bailey, Miriam Bom- identification, naming, and classifica- hard, and B. E. Dahlgren in the United tion of palms with herbarium specimens Stateswere able to study an increasing as the vouchers or standards.We com- number of palms in the herbarium and pare new material with these to deter- in the field. Burret, in the thirty years mine whether an unidentified palm of his active study, describedabout 550 agreeswith one already describedor is speciesof palms from all warmer parts new to science. of the world. Thus, in 1954, when I The standards are woefully inade- attempted to sift out the duplication quate. A grass,for example,can be pre- among palms described before then, it served in its entirety and comparisons appearedthat there were in the vicinity of whole made against whole' Most of 236 generaof palms known to science palms are so unwieldy that only parts and somewherein the vicinity of 2,650 can ordinarily be preserved.It may be species(as distinguishedfrom names, that material which is sent for identi- 66 PRTNC]PES [Vol.3 fication consistsof parts different from of those then known with one possible "standard" those representedby the or exception. C. lanceolatzs from Grand type-specimenso that direct comparison Comore. The latter, unfortunately, is is impossible.Then identification can known only from some fragments of a at bestbe only tentative. We have only leaf and parts of an inflorescence with a skeletonsystem which rnust be fleshed flowers deposited in the herbarium at out beforepalms are understoodby bot- Paris. Furthermore, Chrysalidocerpus anist, horticulturist, or others in the was not supposed to have red fruit. way that smaller plants are now under- Therefore no comparison could be made stood. then. Perhapsan examplewill help to make The next step was to obtain flowers of clear the inadequacy of present palm the Cabada palm. When these were ex- taxonomy. The Fairchild Tropical Gar- amined, I felt more strongly than ever den has distributed amons its members that the palm was indeed a species of plants of a palm known to some as Chrysalidocarpas. Although I now had "Soledad" Chrysalidocarp&s sp. or to a complete picture of the cultivated palm others as the Cabada palm. Its story is and although, in general, there was con- representativeof the taxonomist's prob- siderable agreement between it and the lems. fragments of the palm from the Como- When I first started visitins the At- res, no definite identification could be kins Carden of Harvard Universityat made. Had we known that the Cabada Soledad,Cuba, N{r. Walsingham,then palm came from Grand Comore, there Superintendent,asked me to identify a would have been basis for a reasonable handsome cluster palm with red fruit assumption that it was Chrysalidocarpus which grew besidethe laboratory. Seed lanceol,atus despite the lack of informa- had come originally from a plant estab- tion on fruit of the latter. But we do not lished in the garden of Dr. Cabada in know from where it came. nearby Cienfuegos. Dr. Cabada had \ow we must somehow obtain a com- been a ship's doctor, if I understand plete picture of the Comores palm, a not correctly, and had apparently brought too easy task. In time a letter to Sovern- the palm from some other part of the ment authorities in Madagascar asking world-but which part no one knew. for assistance in obtaining fruiting ma- In 1952, I photographed the palm, terial of C. lanceolatu.s produced some made notes on its habit, colors, size,and results. I received parts of two palms collectedleaves and fruit, for there were from the Comores. One had fruit but then no flowers. The habit, fruit, shape was immediately identifiable as a spe- and certain other characteristicsof the cies of Rauenea, thus was removed from inflorescenceled me to suspect that it consideration. The other was truly a might be a speciesof Chrysalidocarpus, Chrysalidocarpa,s but in flower. Another a genuswhich occursnaturally in Mada- letter has gone out explaining that we gascarand the nearby Comoresgroup need fruit of the second. of islands. I therefore went to the most In the meantime, I had come across recent publication on palms of Mada- the description of a palm growing on gascar and the Comores and tried to the island of Pemba off the east coast identify it with the keys and descriptions of Africa which answered the descrip' therein. If it were a speciesof Chrysali- tion of the Cabada palm in some re- docarpus,it failed to fit the descriptions spects, and I had been fortunate enough l95el MOORE: TAXONOMY 67 to study specimensof it in the herba- rium at the Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, England. There was no question but that this was a Chrysalid,ocarpus) and furthermore it had red fruit. The fruit, however, was considerably larger than that of the Cabadapalm. Now we are faced with a dual prob- lem. What is the palm from Pemba which appearsto representa speciesas yet unknown to science? And still- what is the Cabadapalm? To further complicate this problem, we must now re-examine the relationshin between Chrysalidocarpusand "noih", genus from Madagascar,N eophloga. Chrysali- docarpus is not supposedto have red fruit; Neophloga, rhor:,gh it does have red fruit, is supposedto be a genus of dwarf palms. When considering the de- limitation of genera,size cannot be con- 33. N{r. Walsingham serves as a scale beside sidered of much importance since the one of several clumps of Chrysalid,ocarpus sp, basisfor all our classificationis based at the Atkins Garden, Soledad, Cuba. on the more constant characteristicsof Comore. If not, then we must search flowers, fruits, and leaves.Perhaps the further to discover its native home but, two genera Neophloga and, Chrysalid,o- having already eliminated all possibili- carpus are but one (with variation simi- ties, can still with some certainty con- lar to Bactris in the New World) which sider it a new species, proceed to de- contains within its limits both yellow- scribe and name it, and assign it to a and red-fruited species,both tall and place in our scheme of classification. It dwarf palms.but which is distinguished is likely that a period of as much as ten from all other palms by mors constant years will be required to give an answer and important differences. to Mr. Walsingham's simple question "What Thus the problem has grown and no is it?" answeris yet in sight for the identity of What has been said before deals with the Cabada palm. I hope that fortune what has been done, and with what is will permit someoneto visit Madagascar being done at present. There are fewer and the Comores, and if so that he persons actively working with the tax- may find Chrysalidocarpus lanceolatus onomy of palms today than there were in fruit on Grand Comore. Then it a century ago despite the great increase should be relatively easy to say whether in material for study. Hence the slow the Cabada palm is identical with it or pace at which we progress. Obviously different. If the former, we must sup- the taxonomist is not working under posethat Dr. Cabada(or someoneelse, either ideal conditions nor in an ideal for the samepalm has since been found manner. The riches of the trooics are cultivated in other parts of the Carib- slill overwhelmins and we are still faced bean area) brought seed from Grand rvith the problem of finding out what 68 PRINCIPES [Vol. 3 palms grow there utilizing what little members. This, in the {orm oI Circular information we can obtain from speci' Q.37-13 (6-55), is reproducedbelow. mens and notes. Large collections of It should be rememberedthat an import specimensfrom the Pacific Islands and permit from the Import and Permit Unit from the American tropics still await of the Division is required before ma' study in the her,barium at the L. H. terial is introduced. Bailey Hortorium and in other herbaria. In explanation of quarantines, Mr. "The I know that there are undescribed spe- Kostal writes: concern of the De- cies in those collectionsand surely fur- partment fof Agriculture] relative to ther exploration of remote regions will palm importations dates back manY disclose more, though how many one years to the time a very destructivedate would be hard-pressedto estimate. For scaleinsect was introduced on date palm years yet, palm students must continue o{fshoots. This insectwas a very serious "old- at least in part in the standard handicap to our developingdate palm fashioned" taxonomy. industry in the southwest. After many of Old - fashioned, because time has years of effort and great expenditure brought change to our study of plants. public money this scalewas eradicated. and In temperate regions of the world, the Palms, such as date palm offshoots describing and cataloguing of plants large old palm plants, are very di{ficult of the has largely been done. Today the tax- to examinefor plant pestsbecause onomist can truly fill his role in bring- many overlapping lea{ sheaths." ing together information from all tech- niques of botany' He can study the spe- STATUS OF PALMS UNDER cies of plants as a whole using experi- QUARANTINE NO. 37 mental methods and arriving at more Under the provisions of Regulation objective conclusions.Ideally, the tax- l8d of No. 37 the importa' onomy of palms should somedaY-and Quarantine tion o{ palms and woody specieswhich hopefully soon-f ollow in this more can be grown from and which come true completefashion so we may understand from seed rnay be imported onlY as palms as biological units rather than as seeds. The Regulation provides that museum fragments. plants within size and age limits may be imported when it is impossible to Pro- NOTESON CUTTURE cure viable seed. Exceptions are also Regulotions for the made for clonal material. There should be no difficulty in getting seedso{ com- lntroduclion of Pqlms mon palms such as Acrocomia, Attalea, Palms are principally introduced into Coco's,Kentia ( Howea), Liuistona, Rha' cultivation through the medium o{ pid ophyllum, Sabal, Scheelea, W ashing' seeds.Some which do not produce seeds tonia.,and others. Viable seedsof genera and special clones of others, however, which may be more difficult to get are may also be introduced as live plants. those of the so-called under growth Mr. Emile Kostal, Acting Station Head, palms and others which are likely to be Agricultural Research Service, Plant of botanical interest to scientific institu- Quarantine Division, 209 River Street, tions including ,arboretums.They would Hoboken, New Jersey, has kindly Pro- include but not be limited to certain spe- vided pertinent governmental informa- cies of such genera as Charnaedorea, tion for the guidance o{ Palm Society Continued on Page 75