Digital Garden

Roystonea regia 

Bottle palm, Royal palm

Scientific name- Roystonea regia 

Common name- Bottle palm and royal palm 

Family-Arecaceae 

Habit type-Tree 

Distribution: 

Roystonea regia is found in Central America, Cuba, Cyman Islands, Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), the Lesser Antilles, The Bahamas, Southern Florida, and Mexico (Veracruz, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán). 

Roystonea regia is most abundant in Cuba, occurs on hillsides and valleys. In Southern Florida, Roystonea regia occurs in strand swamps and hardwood hammocks. 

Roystonea is cultivated in tropical and subtropical climates in the United States, Australia, Brazil, and parts of Southern Asia as a landscape palm. It appears to naturalise with ease, and extensive naturalised populations are present in Panama, Costa Rica, and Guyana. In the United States it grows mostly in central and Southern Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and in South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley and Southern California. 

Leaves Pinnate, 3 m long, with numerous leaflets in several planes (plumose), with prominent secondary ribs. 

The crown shaft (an elongated circumferential leaf base formation at the top of the trunk surrounding the buds where all the subsequent leaves are formed) present on some species of palm is bright, glossy green, slightly swollen at the base, and up to 2 m long. 

Lower leaves droop downward. Leaflets have acute tips, prominent secondary veins and scales along the prominent midrib's undersurface. 

Bark 

Solitary, erect, greyish white, 30 m tall and 40-60 cm in diameter, swollen to 75 cm at the base and towards the middle. 

Leaf scars are regular and closely spaced, but not raised or prominent from a distance. The trunk of Roystonea regia is one of the hallmarks of the species. 

It is greyish white in colour and typically swells at the base, sometimes showing some random bulging at the upper side of the stem. 

Basal diameter of the trunk can reach 30 inches or more. Mid trunk diameter probably averages 18 inches. 

Inflorescence 

Spadix 

Flower 

Male Flowers: Considerably larger than the female, irregularly ovoid, obtuse, calyx very small with slightly imbricate, scarious, sub pellucid, sub-deltoid, obtuse or acute, and more or less carinate sepals, petals considerably longer than the sepals, concave irregularly ovate-oblong or oblong-elliptical , bluntish or subacute, striately veined.Stamens usually 6-7, occasionally 8-9, but as long as the petals, anthers relatively large, slightly shorter than the filaments, filaments linearly subulate at the apex, rudimentary ovary globose with 3 short acute stigmatic points. 

Female Flowers: open for short time after the male, horizontal, sepals reniform, entire, smooth, slightly callous at the base, corolla four times as long as the calyx, staminodes forming a cup, lining the undivided part of the corolla, and crowned by 6 obtuse lobes, 3 of them peeping forth between the divisions of the corolla. Ovary globose, usually unicellular, fleshy stigmas, triangular-subulate, recurved. 

Fruits 

round to oval, mature from green to brownish-red or dark purple, single-seeded. 

Fast-growing ornamental palm, looks especially impressive when formally massed along avenues and boulevards. Drought and fairly salt-tolerant. 

Prone to being attacked by rhinoceros beetles, which damage growing points (resulting in palm death), or damaged leaflets. 

FACTS & MEDICINAL USES 

Why is it called Roystonea regia? 

William Bartram described the species from Lake Dexter, along the St. Johns River in the area of modern Lake and Volusia Counties in central Florida. Commonly known as the royal palms or bottle palm, the genus was named after Roy Stone, a U.S. Army Engineer 

Roystonea regia is being planted throughout the tropics and subtropics as an ornamental. The seed is used as a source of oil and for livestock feed. 

Leaves are used for thatching (building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed or palm branches) and the wood for construction. 

The roots are used as a diuretic, and for that reason they are added to tifey, a Haitian drink, by Cubans of Haitian origin. 

They are also used as a treatment for diabetes. 

Fibres extracted from the leaf sheath of R. regia have been found to be comparable with sisal (flowering plant) and banana fibres, but lower in density, making it a potentially useful source for the use in lightweight composite materials(manufacturing industries). 

An extract from R. regia fruit known as D-004(lipid extract) reduces benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) in rodents. D-004, is a mixture of fatty acids, is being studied as a potential alternative to finasteride(drug ) for the treatment of BPH.