Plant of the Week 07/02/2007: Bottle Palm (Hyophorbe lagenicaulis)

Plant of the Week 07/02/2007

Hyophorbe lagenicaulis (L.H. Bailey) H.E. Moore

Photographed by: Chelsie Vandaveer
Credits: Bottle palm photographed in Chelsie's personal collection.
Other Information: Olympus C-8080wz

Île Ronde is a small island in the Mascarene Archipelago. It sits 22 kilometers (14 miles) northeast of the island of Mauritius. Sometime between 25,000 and 100,000 years ago, the island rose from the Indian Ocean. Now it is 530 acres of volcanic tuff; plate tectonics have moved the island far north of the hot spot that created it.

Arab traders certainly knew the Mascarenes. Portuguese sailors stopped to take on food and fresh water. The Dutch tried to settle on Mauritius. The French had a presence until Napoleon’s Waterloo. The English ruled for 158 years. The islands have been independent since 1968.

The rocky shore line and scarcity of fresh water kept Round Island unpopulated, at least by humans. The island had an extensive hardwood forest and a coastal palm savanna. Birds, reptiles, bats and plants evolved there mostly undisturbed until the early 1800s. Then goats and rabbits were left on the island. The European animals decimated the plant life starting a cascade that destroyed most of the animals. The exposed soil washed away with the seasonal rains.

The Round Island bottle palm (Hyophorbe lagenicaulis (L.H. Bailey) H.E.Moore) [hi off’ or be lag’ en e cau lis] was one of the survivors of this disaster. According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), seven bottle palms were all that remained by the 1980s. But people caused the loss and the people of Mauritius are working to restore the little island. The rabbits and goats are gone, weeding is ongoing, and the savanna is being replanted. And restoring the plants gives the remaining wildlife a chance to survive.

The genus, Hyophorbe, has five species; all are native to one or more islands in Mauritius. The bottle palm has a swollen trunk and pinkish-green crown shaft. The palm has few fronds, usually 4 or 5 that arch away from the crown. The bottle shape and spray of fronds has given it another name—the champagne palm.

The bottle palm is very slow growing and hence makes a good container plant. The photographed specimen was a green shoot protruding from the soil when purchased at Selby Botanical Garden in 1993. Including its fronds, it is still less than 6 feet tall.

(Compiled from: “Section 3: Extinctions in Recent Time”, A Global Species Assessment, Jonathan E.M. Baillie, Craig Hilton-Taylor, and Simon N. Stuart, eds. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 2004; “05. Round Island”, Projects, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, 2006; “Hyophorbes”, Ian Edwards; and personal experience)