Calamus walkeri
Calamus (KAL-ah-muhs) walkeri (wahl-kehr'-ee) | |||||||
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Guandong, China. Photo by Dr. John Dransfield, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Palmweb. | |||||||
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Contents
Habitat and Distribution
China (South-east China) and Vietnam (except Cochinchina). In forest up to 300 m.
Description
Culture
Comments and Curiosities
Uses: The cane is of high quality for handicrafts.
Conservation: Unknown, but likely to be poor since lowland forests have mostly been cleared in its known range.
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Beccari (1908) was perhaps misled into believing that C. tonkinensis was distinct by reports that it was erect and not climbing; his later comparisons with C. tenuis were also misleading. The Vietnamese and Chinese material that we have seen match perfectly. The variety brevispicatus was diagnosed on the basis of shorter rachillae (up to 3.5 cm) and the inflorescence branching to only one order. However, the former is of no significance (for example rachillae on the type of C. walkeri range from 2 - 5.5 cm on the single partial inflorescence at K), and the latter feature is not shown by the type. There appears to be very little justification for separating C. faberi and C. walkeri, although we do not feel able to synonymise them here because we have no field experience of either form. Furthermore we were not able to locate the type of C. faberi, which is reportedly kept at W but could not be traced by curatorial staff there in 1999. Nonetheless, all the material examined from the region under study (some of it formerly determined as C. faberi) can easily be considered to lie within the normal range of variation of C. walkeri. It should be noted that all the material in K from Hong Kong (type locality of C. walkeri) bears scattered bristles along at least one costa abaxially; this is the principal character used by Gagnepain & Conrard (1937) and Pei et al. (1991) to identify C. faberi and provides further support for treating the two as conspecific. Two other diagnostic features reported by Gagnepain & Conrard (1937) also fail on the one specimen of C. faberi they cite for Indochina: their specimen has three not four costae adaxially and has smaller, squatter flowers only because it is far from anthesis. A sterile specimen from Rayong (Hodel & Vatcharakorn 1572 in BH) differs from C. walkeri in its unarmed ocrea but cannot be identified as C. faberi and we leave it unnamed. Thus there are still no convincing records of either species from Thailand, contra Hodel & Vatcharakorn (1998). One of the most distinctive parts of the species is its leaf sheath (see Key), which was not available to Beccari but is well represented in e.g. Baker & Utteridge 2. (J. Dransfield, A Synopsis of the Rattans (Arecaceae: Calamoideae) of Laos and Neighbouring Parts of Indochina. 2002) |
External Links
References
Phonetic spelling of Latin names by edric.
Special thanks to Geoff Stein, (Palmbob) for his hundreds of photos.
Special thanks to Palmweb.org, Dr. John Dransfield, Dr. Bill Baker & team, for their volumes of information and photos.
Glossary of Palm Terms; Based on the glossary in Dransfield, J., N.W. Uhl, C.B. Asmussen-Lange, W.J. Baker, M.M. Harley & C.E. Lewis. 2008. Genera Palmarum - Evolution and Classification of the Palms. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. All images copyright of the artists and photographers (see images for credits).
J. Dransfield, A Synopsis of the Rattans (Arecaceae: Calamoideae) of Laos and Neighbouring Parts of Indochina. 2002
Many Special Thanks to Ed Vaile for his long hours of tireless editing and numerous contributions.