Calamus wailong

Calamus (KAL-ah-muhs) wailong (weh'-long)
Nakai, Laos. Photo by Dr. John Dransfield, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Palmweb.
Scientific Classification
Genus: Calamus (KAL-ah-muhs) Species: wailong (weh'-long)
Synonyms
None set.
Native Continent
Asia
Morphology
Habit: Clustering Leaf type: Pinnate
Culture
Survivability index
Common names
wai nokkhor, wai khor, wai lai, wai namhang, wai namleuang, wai khairt (Lao Loum), kloong (Phong), kateng koday (Hmong).

Habitat and Distribution

Indochinese endemic. China (South Yunnan), Thailand (North and North-east) and Laos (North and Central).

Laos. "Basal sheath." Photo by Dr. John Dransfield, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Palmweb.

Tropical moist forest at 350 - 600 m (Laos), 600 - 1000 m (Thailand) and 600 - 950 m (Yunnan).

Description

Robust clustering rattan. Stems to 50 m long, without sheaths 1.5–3.5 cm in diam., with sheaths 2–5 cm in diam., internodes to 35 cm long. Leaf cirrate; sheaths green, often with stripes of white indumentum, sheaths near base of stem covered with abundant evenly distributed small spines to about 0.2 cm long, more distally with an abundance of large brown triangular spines to 1.2 cm long, interspersed with much smaller spines to 2 mm long, very rarely ± unarmed; petiole 5–20 cm long; rachis to 3 m long; cirrus to 1.5 m long; leaflets regularly arranged, about 30 on each side of the rachis, lanceolate, the longest 35–50 x 2–5.5 cm, ± unarmed except for bristles along the margins. Inflorescences to 1 m long, male and female superficially similar, the male branching to 3 orders, the female to 2 orders, lacking a terminal flagellum, with up to 10 evenly distributed partial inflorescences; primary bracts spiny; male rachillae to 2 cm long, the female to 5 cm long. Mature fruit ellipsoid 1.7–2 x 1–1.1 cm, briefly beaked, covered in 17 –18 vertical rows of ivory coloured scales with brown margins. Seed ellipsoid, 1.5 x 0.9 cm; endosperm shallowly ruminate. Editing by edric.

One specimen listed in the protologue (Tong 24898) has irregularly pinnate leaves with large voids between groups; it may not belong in this species and is perhaps C. platyacanthoides. The Thai material in mature fruit links the type specimen to the Lao material, none of which is in ripe fruit but where sheath and leaf characters are well represented. Fieldworkers will find two striking vegetative features useful to identify C. wailong. One is that the leaflets are regularly arranged on virtually all the leaves of climbing stems. The other is that the sheaths on lower parts of the plant are often armed very differently from those higher up the stem (see photograph in Evans et al. 2001b). Typically, sheaths lower down are weakly armed, bearing very few to many tiny, tubercular spines (giving a rasp-like texture), occasionally with one or two incongruous long spines among them. They also show a distinctive pattern of marbled white indumentum, recalling the flank pattern of Bar-backed Partridge Arborophila brunneopectus, which explains the widespread local name 'wai nokkhor' (= partridge rattan). More distal sheaths bear progressively more large spines until in mature, fruiting parts of the stem they are thickly armed. On such sheaths the marbled pattern is invisible. Until one has seen the whole range on a single stem it is very hard to believe that all these sheaths can belong to the same species. Evans, T 65 includes the full range of sheath types from a single individual. It also illustrates the wide variability in the size of the inflorescence. One male individual bore complete, fertile inflorescences ranging from 1.2 - 3.0 m, the shortest ones more or less erect, the longest ones with an erect axis but drooping branches. Some inflorescences end in a clawed appendix, others do not. Pei et al. (1989) chose the attractive Dai language name as the specific epithet for this species. As an illustration of the variability of local names for rattans in the region it is relevant that in central Bokeo province, Laos, where people speak Lao Leu, a dialect similar to Dai, we found that C. wailong is referred to as 'wai nokkhor' but the name 'wai long' is also in use there, for a large unidentified flagellate Calamus species (either C. flagellum or C. rudentum). (J. Dransfield, A Synopsis of the Rattans (Arecaceae: Calamoideae) of Laos and Neighbouring Parts of Indochina. 2002)/Palmweb.

Comments and Curiosities

Uses: The cane is of high quality and widely traded. The shoot is edible.

Conservation: Critically Endangered. (IUCN Redlist 2004)