Coccothrinax

• Authority

  Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

• Family

  Arecaceae

• Scientific Name

  Coccothrinax

• Description

  Genus Description - Small to medium, solitary palms; trunk slender with faint leaf scars. Leaf blades fan-shaped, with lepidote lower surface, the segments united at base; petioles flattened-convex, ligulate beyond the junction with blade, the ligule woody and entire; sheath tubular, fibrous, weathering into a network of tardily deciduous fibers. Inflorescences axillary, erect to arching, shorter than the leaves, the primary branches pendulous, paniculate; primary bracts enclosing the base of a primary branch, the lowermost one bicarinate, the others tubular, with an oblique aperture. Flowers bisexual, dispersed along the secondary branches of the inflorescence, pedicellate; perianth short, 6-merous, lobed or dentate; stamens 9-12, the filaments free to slightly connate at base, the anthers basifixed, notched at apex; ovary l-locular, with a single ovule, the style short, the stigma laterally compressed, funnel-shaped. Fruit small, 1-seeded, depressed-globose, with thin, fleshy mesocarp; seeds globose, sulcate.