PALMS Hodel: Samoan Clinostigma Vol. 51(1) 2007 Unraveling DONALD R. HODEL University of California 4800 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. Clinostigma Los Angeles, CA 90022 USA in Samoa [email protected] Field work has revealed that Samoa is home to three species of Clinostigma, the handsome, highly ornamental, quintessential palms of the South and West Pacific. Two species, C. samoense and C. warburgii, occur on ‘Upolu while the third one, C. savaiiense, is found on Savai’i. Samoa includes nine inhabited islands and two great, sweeping arc from the Ogasawara and political regions in the Pacific Ocean between Caroline Islands in the west Pacific Ocean to 13 to 15° south and 168 to 173° west, about New Ireland, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, 4200 kms south of Hawaii, 2200 kms west of and Samoa in the south Pacific. While unusual, Tahiti, and 2900 kms northeast of New this vast, insular distribution is not unique Zealand. The two largest islands, Savai’i and among the palms. The coconut, Heterospathe, ‘Upolu, comprise the independent state of Metroxylon, and Pritchardia, among others, have Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) while Tutuila a similar distribution. Clinostigma are highly and several smaller islands in the eastern part ornamental and typically have a handsome, of the archipelago comprise the U. S. territory smooth, waxy-white, ringed trunk topped with of American Samoa. Polynesians settled and a conspicuous, lime-green crownshaft and inhabit the islands and enjoy a year-round, splendid crown of spreading leaves with wet, tropical climate. Centuries of human elegantly pendulous pinnae. activity and a series of strong tropical cyclones Samoan Clinostigma differ from other members in the last 20 years devastated much of Samoa’s of the genus on nearby island groups, such as fragile forests. Undisturbed, closed-canopy C. exorrhizum (Fiji) and C. harlandii (Vanuatu), primary forest is uncommon while highly in the lack of prominent stilt roots at the base disturbed and altered primary and secondary of the trunk and black rather than red fruits. forests, typically with many exotic, invasive weed species, predominate. In Samoa Clinostigma has had a long and somewhat tortured and complex taxonomic Six genera of palms are recorded for Samoa: history comprising up to six taxa and eight Balaka (2–4 species); Clinostigma (3 species); names. In December 1978 I visited Samoa and Cocos nucifera (coconut); the mysterious and made four collections of seeds of Clinostigma enigmatic Drymophloeus whitmeeanus; from ‘Upolu, two each of what I called C. Metroxylon (1 or 2 species); and the rather shy samoense and C. onchorhynchum, and Solfia samoensis. All genera and species occur distributed them to several botanical gardens in Samoa while only the coconut occurs in in Hawaii and palm growers in Hawaii, American Samoa (Clinostigma and Metroxylon California and Florida. At the time, I based have been recorded from Tutuila although it these species determinations entirely on fruit is thought that they are cultivated and were shape and size and position of the stigmatic brought from Samoa). remains because the most current information The focus of this paper is on Clinostigma, which in the literature at that time (Moore and includes about 11 or so species native in a Fosberg 1956, Moore 1969) and personal PALMS 51(1): 11–29 11 PALMS Hodel: Samoan Clinostigma Vol. 51(1) 2007 communication with the late Dr. Harold E. Botanical Garden, and a subsequent visit in Moore, Jr. suggested that these were the most 2005, though, prompted me to investigate important and reliable characters for further Clinostigma on ‘Upolu. Based on distinguishing species of Clinostigma. inflorescence architecture alone, there are clearly at least two taxa, but the appropriate Near sea level along the northern and southern application of names to these taxa remained coasts of ‘Upolu I made collections in two elusive. localities where the fruits were rounded, 7–10 mm diam., and with the stigmatic remains In October 2005 I again visited Samoa and about midway between the top and bottom. I other islands in the southwestern Pacific to referred to these two collections as Clinostigma gather information and take photographs as samoense. In the central highlands of ‘Upolu I part of a project I am leading that will result made collections in two localities where the in a publication on the palms of Pacific Islands. fruits were markedly longer than broad, 15–18 This paper summarizes the findings about mm long, and with the stigmatic remains near Clinostigma in Samoa from that trip as well as the top. I referred to these two collections as information gleaned from the cultivated plants C. onchorhynchum. in Hawaii that were grown from seeds I At least one each of my Clinostigma collected in Samoa in 1978, examination of onchorhynchum and C. samoense collections specimens in several herbaria, and a review of from ‘Upolu have been flowering and fruiting the literature. for several years at Ho’omaluhia Botanical History of Clinostigma in Samoa Garden of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens system in Hawaii. While visiting Ho’omaluhia The tortured and complex taxonomic and in 2004, I examined these collections carefully nomenclatural history of Clinostigma in Samoa and was able to distinguish the two taxa based begins and is centered on the island of ‘Upolu solely on fruit size and shape, as I had done (Table 1). Hermann Wendland (1862) more than 25 years earlier on ‘Upolu in Samoa. established Clinostigma when he named and However, I was surprised to notice that the described C. samoense from material that branching pattern or architecture of the Pickering (Pickering s. n.) had collected on inflorescences of the two taxa was markedly ‘Upolu during the United States South Pacific different as well, a character to which I and Exploring Expedition of 1833–1842. Asa Gray others had given little, if any, attention. The of Harvard University, who was preparing the C. onchorhynchum, with larger fruits longer botanical account of the Expedition, had than broad, had broom-like inflorescences forwarded Pickering’s material to Wendland, branched to two orders and thick, coarse, one of the leading palm botanists of the time. narrowly diverging rachillae. The C. samoense, According to Christophersen (1935) and with smaller, rounded fruits, had diffuse Moore and Fosberg (1956), Wendland had inflorescences branched to three orders and commented that the material upon which he slender, widely spreading rachillae. based the new genus and species was My surprise at the differences in inflorescence incomplete and contained fragments from architecture between what I and others had Savai’i. Wendland’s specimen consisted of part referred to as Clinostigma samoense and C. of a leaf, one of the main branches of an onchorhynchum was due in part to the fact that inflorescence with fertilized pistillate flowers, Cox and Moore (1986) had thoroughly and the tips of some rachillae with immature discounted fruit shape and size as reliable fruits, the latter labeled “Savai’i” and with the characters for distinguishing these two species. stigmatic remains midway between the base Indeed, in their paper, they relegated C. and apex (Christophersen 1935). Although onchorhynchum to a synonym of C. samoense, Wendland’s material was incomplete and a fact to which I was aware during visits to perhaps mixed, Moore and Fosberg (1956) felt Hawaii in 1998 and 2000. At those times I that “the major part of the description informed the staff at Ho’omaluhia Botanic corresponds with what appears to be a Garden about this nomenclatural change and, duplicate specimen at the Gray Herbarium” based on my recommendation, they adjusted (GH). the labels accordingly. The specimen at GH consists of part of a leaf, The rather dramatic differences in a branch of the inflorescence, and loose inflorescence architecture I had noticed immature and rounded, nearly mature fruits, between the two taxa in 2004 at Ho’omaluhia all labeled as being from ‘Upolu and annotated 12 PALMS Table 1. Summary of names of Clinostigma in Western Samoa and their status, 1862 to 2006. Name Status Author & Date Collection cited Location Clinostigma samoense new species Wendland (1862) Pickering s. n. ‘Upolu syn. of Cyphokentia samoensis Rechinger (1907, 1910) as Clinostigma onchorhynchum Langlois (1976); Whistler (1992) Cyphokentia samoensis new name (combination) Warburg (1898) based on Clinostigma samoense syn. of Clinostigma samoense Beccari (1910) syn. of Clinostigma onchorhynchum Burret (1928) Clinostigma warburgii new species Beccari (1934) Reinecke 322 Lake Lanoto’o, as Clinostigma samoense Langlois (1976); Upolu Whistler (1992) Hodel: syn. of Clinostigma samoense Whistler (1992); Hodel (1999) as Clinostigma sp. “Eastern ‘Upolu” Hodel (2006) Samoan Clinostigma onchorhynchum new species Beccari (1913) Whitmee s. n. Lake Lanoto’o, syn. of Clinostigma samoense Cox and Moore (1986); Upolu Hodel (2006) Clinostigma Clinostigma powellianum new species Beccari (1913) Powell 246 Western Samoa synonym of Clinostigma samoense Martelli (1935); (no locality cited) Whistler (1992); Hodel (2006) Clinostigma savaiiense new species Christophersen (1935) Christophersen 2267 Matavanu, Savai’i Exorrhiza vaupelii new species Burret (1935) Vaupel ??? Maugaloa, Savai’i Clinostigma vaupelii new name (combination) Burret (1935) based on Exorrhiza vaupelii synonym of Clinostigma savaiiense Whistler (1992); 51(1)2007 Vol. Hodel (1999, 2006) 13 PALMS Hodel: Samoan Clinostigma Vol. 51(1) 2007 1. Holotype of Clinostigma samoense (GH). with an unpublished name in Wendland’s specimen. The inflorescence is distinctive in its handwriting (Moore and Fosberg 1956). The broom-like appearance with thick, coarse, name “Savai’i” does not appear on the narrowly diverging rachillae (Fig. 1). 14 PALMS Hodel: Samoan Clinostigma Vol. 51(1) 2007 Over 35 years later, Warburg (1898) examined thus, he was transferring it to Cyphokentia and material that Reinecke (Reinecke 322) had proposing the new combination? collected at Lake Lanoto’o in the central highlands of ‘Upolu in 1894.