ETHNOBOTANY of PALMS

Palms (Arecaceae) are a large family of plants with about 2,500 species and are of economic importance to many countries and indigenous peoples of the tropics. They are found in the humid tropics and subtropics and are highly diverse in the Malesian and Neotropical regions but scarce in the African subcontinent. Palms are a major component of tropical ecosystems and occupy many diverse habits. They grow abundantly in wet lowlands, mangrove swamps, along river edges, in the under-storey of rainforests, in high mountainous regions and in secondary forests. They provide important food resources for animals living in these habitats. Indigenous peoples not only hunt these animals that feed on palms, they also use palms for their daily needs. Traditional uses of palms include: leaves for thatching, basketry and weaving, palm trunks for house construction, rattan for making furniture, palm fibers for strong twines, oil from coconuts and oil palms, fermented palm sap and fruits for alcoholic beverages, palm fruits and palm hearts for food, sago starch from the pith of the sago palm and for multiple medicinal purposes. This myriad of palm uses make them among the most exploited of plants on earth by humans.

They can be easily distinguished and have very distinctive morphologies. They are composed mainly of an unbranched trunk and a crown of pinnate leaves. They bear flowers that are typically bisexual and their fruits are usually drupes or berries. In spite of their importance to mankind, many palms have not been well studied because they occur in the tropics not easily accessible and in many developing countries where funds are unavailable for training and research (Purseglove, 1972).

The coconut (Cocos nucifera) is by far the most well- known plantation crop and has been domesticated by humans for thousands of years. Coconut domestication is still unknown, despite a recent study of its closest relatives, which are mainly from the Neotropics. This study (Gunn, 2003), carried out in conjunction with the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Missouri Botanical Garden’s Graduate Program, was based on the DNA of the Cocoeae to which the coconut is a member. The family tree based on genetics has shown that the closest relatives of the coconut are of South American origin and that the group diversified in that region and probably dispersed to Africa and Madagascar and also to the Indo Pacific via the Antarctic corridor by the Eocene when the climate was much warmer than at present. Further studies on the domestication of the coconut will be beneficial to our understanding of the effects of human selection on food crops.

Bibliography: