Royal Palm 143 



VII. ROYAL PALM 



GENUS ROYSTONEA O. F. COOK 



Species Roystonea regia (Huml)oldt, Bonpland and Kunth) O. F. Cook 



Oreodoxa regia Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth 



OYAL palms are among the most characteristic trees of Cuba and 

 Porto Rico, and ver}^ abundant on those islands. The tree of Porto 

 Rico differs ver\^ slightly from that of Cuba and has been described 

 by Mr. O. F. Cook as a distinct species {Roystonea horinquena) but 

 the differences are so insignificant as to make their specific distinction doubtful. 

 The trees also grow in southern Florida, near Miami, and on both the eastern 

 and western sides of the Everglades, and IMr. Cook has proposed that these be 

 known as Roystonea iioridana, but they do not differ in the least from the Cuban 

 generic type, Roystonea regia, the " Palma real." The generic name is in honor 

 of General Roy Stone of the United States army. 



The tnmk sometimes reaches a height of 30 meters, perhaps even more, but 

 usually does not exceed 20 or 25 meters with a diameter of 6 dm. or less; it is 

 strictly erect, gray in color, tapering slightly upward from the rather abruptly 

 enlarged base or often somewhat bulging at or about the middle. The numerous 

 pinnate leaves are 3 to 5 meters long, with many Hnear-Ianceolate, long-pointed 

 segments 9 to 10 dm. long, those near the base of the leaf the largest, sometimes 

 4 cm. wide; these are dark green and somewhat drooping; the leaf-stalks are convex 

 beneath, nearly flat on the upper side, and expand at the base into long broad 

 bright green sheaths, each of which leaves a ring-Hke scar on the trimk as it falls 

 away. The monoecious flowers are in large nodding stalked panicles at the bases 

 of the leaf-sheaths; the branches of the panicle are somewhat angled; the flowers are 

 stalkless on the slender ultimate appressed branches of the panicle; the staminate 

 ones have a ver\' small calyx with 3 ovate lobes, much shorter than the 3 leathery 

 white petals, which are about 6 mm. long, and from 6 to 12 stamens, with slender 

 filaments; the pistillate flowers are smaller than the staminate ones, their 3 petals 

 united to the middle, and have 6 short sterile stamens, an oblique, nearly round 

 ovar}', and a 3-lobed stigma, which becomes nearly basal on the ripening fruit. 

 The fruit is blue, sessile, oblong, about 12 mm. long and 8 mm. thick, the exocarp 

 thin, covering a fibrous brown layer which encloses the oblong brown seed; the 

 sharply 3-lobed calyx is persistent at the base of the fruit. 



The Royal palm is one of the most elegant of all palms, and is much planted 

 for ornament in the tropics; in Cuba, where it forms forests, sometimes nearly to 

 the exclusion of other trees, its wood is used for ah sorts of construction, its leaves 

 for thatching, and its fruit for hog- food ; canes are made from the hard rind of the 

 trunk, which encloses the much softer light brown wood of its interior. The 

 broad leaf-sheath is used by the Cubans to encase tobacco for shipment from the 

 plantations, also for the sides and partitions of their huts, which sometimes are 



