Bactris hirta Mart.

Bernal, R., Gradstein, S.R. & Celis, M. (eds.). 2015. Catálogo de plantas y líquenes de Colombia. Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. http://catalogoplantasdecolombia.unal.edu.co

Distribution

Nativa en Colombia; Alt. 80 - 500 m.; Amazonia, Guayana y Serranía de La Macarena.

Morphology General Habit

Subarbusto, arbusto, palma cespitosa

Conservation

Preocupación Menor

Bernal, R., G. Galeano, A. Rodríguez, H. Sarmiento y M. Gutiérrez. 2017. Nombres Comunes de las Plantas de Colombia. http://www.biovirtual.unal.edu.co/nombrescomunes/

Vernacular

chontaduro de grillo, chontaduro de monte, chontaduro de rana, chontaduro de rana de rastrojo, coquillo, coquito, espina

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation

Predicted extinction risk: not threatened. Confidence: confident

Distribution

The Amazon region and adjacent areas, plus SE Brazil, at low elevations. Distribution in Ecuador. The species is apparently rare in Ecuador, where it has been recorded only once. Common and widespread throughout the Amazon region and Atlantic coastal forest of Brazil; lowland or upland rain foreston terra firme, usually below 350 m elevation but occasionally to 1500 m.

Vernacular

Brazil: aricanga-falsa-inteira, aricanga-falsa-partida, jawpe, marajá, marazaiwaran (Tembé), tucui, tucum-mirim, ubim rana. Colombia: chontaduro de rana. Suriname: kiskismaka. Venezuela: cubarro, cuivaro, espinita, guaro.

General Description

Understorey palm. Stem 50-300 cm tall, 0.5-2 cm in diameter. Leaf blade to 2 m long, simple or pinnate. Female flowers scattered along the branches, with an annular calyx much shorter than the corolla. Fruit orange-red to purplish black, globose, 5-10 mm in diameter, covered with small bristles; fruiting perianth with a very small calyx and a much longer, hairy, 3-lobed corolla; staminodial ring absent. Stems solitary or cespitose and forming small clumps, 0.5-3 m tall, 0.5-2 cm diam., commonly covered with persistent, decaying leaf bases, spiny or not spiny on internodes. Leaves 3-8; leaf spines somewhat clustered, black, terete or sometimes flattened, 0.5-3(-5) cm long, dense on sheath, fewer on petiole, usually absent from rachis, or spines absent; sheath 8-26 cm long, sheath, petiole, and rachis spinulose or brown-tomentose; ocrea to 1 cm long; petiole 6-89 cm long; rachis 15-80 cm long; blade simple or pinnate, pinnate leaves with 7-30 pinnae per side, regularly or irregularly arranged, spreading in the same plane, linear, linear-lanceolate or sigmoid, aristate, with fine spinules along the margins, usually with soft hairs to 3 mm long abaxially, and occasionally adaxially; simple leaves 23-80 cm long, 9-20 cm wide at rachis apex, sometimes lighter green abaxially, sometimes with prominent cross-veins, middle pinnae of pinnate leaves 10-37 x 1-3 cm. Inflorescences inter- or infrafoliar, usually borne among persistent leaf sheaths; peduncle 3-21 cm long, straight or curved, spinulose or not; prophyll 3-6(-9) cm long; peduncular bract 9- 12 cm long, sparsely to densely covered with black or brown spines to 5 mm long; rachis 0-0.7 cm long; rachillae 1-4(-6),2.5- 7 cm long, usually forming a 45° angle with the stem, at anthesis densely whitish brown-tomentose, covered with brown; moniliform trichomes; triads regularly arranged almost throughout rachillae, paired or solitary staminate distally; staminate flowers 3-4 mm long, semipersistent or deciduous; sepal lobes 0.5-1 mm long; petals 3-4 mm long; stamens 6-7; pistillode absent; pistillate flowers 2-3.5 mm long; calyx annular, 0.5-1 mm long; corolla tubular, 2-3.5 mm long, tomentose, densely covered with long, flexuous, appressed, brown hairs, these exceeding the corolla; staminodes minute or absent; fruits 5-8 mm diam., rarely to 1 cm long, globose to broadly obovoid, orange-red or red, afterwards becoming black, covered with fine, brown, deciduous spinules, rarely glabrous; mesocarp starchy; endocarp turbinate, the sterile pores slightly displaced longitudinally or equally spaced; endocarp fibers few, free; fruiting perianth with small, 3-lobed calyx and much longer, hairy, broadly 3-lobed corolla, without staminodial ring.