Coccothrinax jamaicensis
species of plant
Coccothrinax jamaicensis, the silver thatch or Jamaican silver thatch, is a fan palm that is endemic to Jamaica.
Taxonomy
The genus Coccothrinax is considered "taxonomically difficult", and in need of a complete taxonomic treatment. Its diversity is primarily in the Greater Antilles—most species are found in Cuba which has 39 species, or Hispaniola, with 11. Unlike its Greater Antillean neighbours, Jamaica supports only a single species, C. jamaicensis. While the species has been reported from Providencia and Swan Island in the western Caribbean, Jestrow and colleagues consider these reports to be in need of validation, and consider the species to be a Jamaican endemic as does the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
Jamaican Coccothrinax were originally placed in C. argentata, but American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey transferred them to C. fragrans. American botanist Robert W. Read concluded that Jamaican Coccothrinax, while variable, did not fit into either species, and described a new species, C. jamaicensis, to include the species. Andrew Henderson and colleagues (1995) considered C. jamaicensis to be a synonym of C. argentata, but Rafaël Govaerts accepted it as a valid species, as did systematists working on Caribbean palms.
Description
Coccothrinax jamaicensis is a single-stemmed, slender palm with a trunk that is 6–8 metres (20–26 ft) tall and normally 6.4–20 centimetres (2.5–7.9 in) but occasionally 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in diameter. The leaves, which are 80–140 centimetres (31–55 in) in diameter, are divided into 35–38 segments.
The public source identifies “Coccothrinax jamaicensis” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Coccothrinax, jamaicensis and species.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coccothrinax jamaicensis” 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.