Iriartea
species of plant
Iriartea is a genus in the palm family Arecaceae. It is native to Central and northern and central South America. The genus includes only the one species, Iriartea deltoidea, which is found from Nicaragua, south into Bolivia and a great portion of the western Amazon basin. It is a common tree in many forests in which it occurs. This species is sometimes referred to as "the devil's penis tree" due to the resemblance of the tree's young prop roots to large, erect, black penises.
Names
It is known by such names as bombona (which can also refer to other palms, e.g. Attalea regia) or cacho de vaca (which can refer to many other plants, like the Bignoniaceous species Godmania aesculifolia or the orchid Myrmecophila humboldtii). In the Murui Huitoto language of southwestern Colombia, it is called jɨagɨna or jɨaìgɨna, in western Ecuador it is known as pambil, and in Peru it is known as the pona palm.
Description
These palms are canopy trees growing to 20–35 m tall. I. deltoidea is easily recognized by the prominent bulge in the center of its trunk, and the stilt roots, which form a dense cone up to 1 m in diameter at the base.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q141221. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iriartea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.