The only species in its genus Cyclanthus - that's how rare and special this is. At first sight, it looks like an understory palm. Unfortunately, it isn't. Doesn't stop me here...
A native of Central America (Amazon), this rhizomous flowering plant can grow quite tall (6-8ft). Some class it as a herb but nothing mentioned about whether it being edible or not. It can be propagated by separating the rhizomes or by leaf cuttings (a sneaky thought just came to mind :-)) or even the fruits floating or carried away by water.
The broad leaves are split about midway, though some have deeper splits while others less so and follows along two separate veins after the split. Noticed that some are even split right into two parts. The leaves are elongated, light to medium green and slightly textured. Each leaf is borne on smooth, thin green stems like petioles arising from the ground.
 |
| six footer |
 |
| partial split |
 |
| half split |
 |
| full split |
It bears small clusters of sweet smelling flowers. I am enticed by a photo in flickr.com with regard to its 'inflorescence'. It actually looked like an interesting yummy dessert concoction from the deliciously delectable 'Death by Chocolate'. So, am certainly dying to see it...
Lastly, if wary its spread by rhizome could potentially make it an invasive plant, suggest just pot it!
p.s. credit to palmtalk.org members for assisting to match this stunning rare plant to its name.
No comments:
Post a Comment