Palms   Calamus

'The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms, hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get into such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along the ground till they meet with another trunk up which to ascend. A tangled mass of twisting living rattan is therefore a sign that at some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left.'

'The rattan seems to have unlimited power of growth, and a single plant may mount up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of the forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning conductor.'

Alfred Russell Wallace, (1853)

acanthospathus	australis
caesia	crassipes
draco	erectus
heterideus	hollrungii
inermis	latifolius
leptospadix	radicalis
tetradactylus	caryotoides
merrillii	moti
muelleri	penizii
usitatus	vestitus

viminalis

warbegii

 

For further information try
	Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens	RBG Kew Species List