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by : BTF

As I Wander...

Welcome!
Living in tropical Malaysia, we tend to take the hot humid weather, thundery rainstorms and the spectrum of wild evergreen plants as a given.

Recently, I noticed more exotic plants making its way into landscaped home gardens, recreational parks, frontages of shopping malls and
commercial buildings.

Along kerb sides of residential streets and busy motorways, palms, trees and flowering plants make pleasant and interesting fringes.

This is a record of the various species "as I see it" for I am in awe of palms. Hence, my premise for this blog is that the global garden,
i.e. every physical garden (tended or untended), becomes a part of my, simply said, cyber palm garden. ;-)

Please feel free to share your thoughts or comments.

Thank you for visiting!


ShaShinKi

ShaShinKi.com - Malaysia's Online Camera Shop!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Talipot Palm

Botanical Name : Corypha umbraculifera

One of the ginormous palms sighted todate!  Everything about this young palm is humongous so the picture here may not indicate its true proportion but standing beside it, I felt like a David & Goliath.

A native of Southern India and Sri Lanka, it is widely cultivated throughout South-east Asia where its leaves are used for thatching and palm sap fermented into a wine.


Its impressive statistics would be somewhat a Guinness record of the flora kind. Some of its awesome and dramatic characteristics are - it can reach heights of 25m; it's monocarpic i.e. flowering only once in its lifetime between 30-80yrs; the largest unbranched inflorescence with uncountable (a million?) miniscule flowers; the fruits take about a year to mature and a sad quirk of nature - the palm dies after fruiting.


The long robust petioles can reach lengths up to 4m, looks clean and without spines while the large palmate leaves stretch out wide about 3-4m in diameter.


playing host to epiphytic ferns

Impressive but definitely not one for the small home garden!

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