Hi there, I don't have a pic, but I found a bunch of palm trees (in Panama), all the same: about 12 ft high (don't know if it's their full height). Long black spines on the trunk. And fruit that looked from a distance like pineapple hanging off it from a thick stem (one one each tree). They are definitely not pineapple, and I haven't opened the fruit yet. Can you help me identify or point me somewhere that can help? Gracias.
The leaves look like fans? If they do, you've got Moretes - Mauritia flexuosa. Pictures will greatly help the ID process.
I will try to get a picture tomorrow, my camera is broken. It's not a morretes. The palm fronds are more like a coconut palm. And the fruit is one big one - I actually thought it was a pineapple, and that somehow a plant had grown up in the palm tree.
I'm intrigued now, and I'm thinking it could be one of three things. 1. Tagua or a relative (Phytelephas spp) 2. An oil palm (Elaeis spp) 3. A tree whose scientific name I don't know, but which is called Coco de la Selva. Pic 1 is Tagua, pic 2 is Oil Palm. I don't have a photo of Coco de la Selva; it resembles a coconut tree but is found in interior forests only; the fruit is similar to what you describe.
Okay, I think we are getting close...I saw one picture of elaeis spp that fit the bill. I would love for it to be the tagua, and that almost looked like it could be it...but the elaeis had the "eyes" that pineapples have. Will try to get a pic of that (and the avocados) to you manana. Gracias! g
You do know you can use the nuts inside the Elaeis the same way you would Tagua? They just need to be roasted before you do it, to remove some of the oil.
Really? Can you eat them? I realized looking at more pictures it may not be the elaeis. I thought the elaeis had one big fruit, but it's actually a whole bunch of them, and this one, I'm quite sure is just one. And we do have American oil palms (think they're called Jaca?) here as well - with the big pod and lots of small orange fruits. Do you know if we can eat those? I'd love to learn more about what we can/can't do, and totally appreciate your knowledge. Do you work with plants or just love them?
Not strictly edible - they're very greasy, so they don't taste too fantastic. Tagua, however, is edible when the pods are young. I work with plants - I'm in forest conservation and native-tree reforestation. Plus I love 'em.
Oh wonderful. I always wanted to be a botanist and still plan on studying it one day. In the meantime, I'm just trying to identify the species around us and look after them.
Okay, so here are the pictures of the palm fruit. You can see the fronds a little in one of the pics (sorry, the ones I took didn't turn out and I couldn't tell - I was using my laptop to shoot). What do you think it is?
That's much more like a mature Tagua in fruit, but the spines make me want to say Hungurahua - Oenocarpus bataua but the fruits are wrong for that. Have you opened one yet?
No, not yet. Had a weird moment about it since it's unknown and so spiny, and didn't know whether any palm species have a defense mechanism. But will do it.
Yes, and they worked! That said, I was brave and used a towel (still pricked myself, ouch). Here are the pics of the "seed" inside and the individual "fruit." Too hard for lil me to get through with a machete, but I sliced enough of the inner "seeds" to see they are solid white inside and look just like regular coconut meat. So what do you think? Could it be tagua?
Could be, but Taguas here aren't spiky. Most palm fruits of that type can be used in the same way, though.
