WorldFloraDB - Nypa fruticans

Characteristics

Trunk to 30 cm wide, to 15 cm thick. Leaves 4–12 per crown, 4–9 m long, erect to arcuate; petiole 50–400 cm long; rachis yellow to brown; pinnae 50–70 each side of rachis, rigid, narrowly lanceolate, 50–130 cm long, 5–8 cm wide, acuminate, coriaceous, adaxially dark green and glossy, abaxially pruinose, with peltate, lanceolate dark brown scales. Inflorescence 30–150 cm long; prophyll 40–50 cm long, 20–25 cm wide, obtuse; peduncular bract acute; first order branches 10–15 cm long; staminate rachillae 6–9 cm long; pistillate head 4–8 cm diam. Staminate flowers c. 5 mm long, yellowish; anthers exserted. Pistillate flowers 10–15 mm long. Fruiting head 20–50 cm diam. Fruit obovoid, 8–15 cm long, 2–9 cm wide, smooth, deeply grooved, dark brown. Seed broadly ovoid, 4–7 cm long, 4–5 cm wide.

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A palm with stout creeping underground stems. It forms clumps. The stems lie along the ground and are underground in soft mud. The leaves have leaflets along a 7 m long axis. The leaves occur in erect clusters. The leaflets are 0.-1.3 m long by 5-8 cm wide. The fruit are flat and 12 cm long by 10 cm across. They are crowded into a very characteristic large round fruiting head which is borne on a special erect stalk. The female flower is a round head on the end of the stalk and below it long male flowers are produced. The centre of the fruit is edible.

Stems creeping, not visible, dividing equally, to 60 cm in diam., forming large colonies. Leaves stiffly erect; blades to 9 m with 57-100 pinnae per side, these regularly arranged and spreading in same plane. Inflorescences erect, to 2 m. Fruits brown, densely packed in a head-shaped infructescence, each obovoid, angled, to 15 × 10 cm.

A prostrate-stemmed, gregarious palm

Life form	perennial
Growth form	tree
Growth support	free-standing
Foliage retention	evergreen
Sexuality	-
Pollination	entomogamy
Spread	-
Mature width (meter)	-
Mature height (meter)	5.0
Root system	-
Rooting depth (meter)	1.5
Root diameter (meter)	-
Flower color	-
Blooming months	-
Fruit color	-
Fruiting months	-
Nitrogen fixer	-
Photosynthetic pathway	c3

Environment

A tropical plant. It suits the hot wet tropical lowlands. They occur along tidal streams throughout the Philippines. They thrive in brackish swamps. They occur in tidal mud flats and mangroves. They occur naturally along the Papuan coast of Papua New Guinea but are most likely planted along the North coast.

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Grows as a mangrove in mud of estuaries forming narrow strand colonies; sometimes in extensive populations but in Australia usually insmall disjunct patches.

Mangrove swamps, tidal areas in deep mud in swampy coastal lowland areas, growing in water or subject to tidal inundation.

Growing in estuarine conditions similar to mangrove.

Light
Soil humidity
Soil texture
Soil acidity
Soil nutriment	-
Hardiness (USDA)

Usage

The young kernel inside the nut is edible. It is normally eaten while immature. Also the base of the "nut" is chewed. Sugar (or vinegar) can be obtained by collecting the sap from the fruit stalk. The sap can be used as a coagulant for buffalo milk cheese. It can be boiled down to produce sugar. Young shoots are eaten.

Uses	animal food food fuel material medicinal social use
Edible	fruits saps seeds shoots
Therapeutic use	Herpes (unspecified), Toothblack (unspecified), Tonic (unspecified), Toothache (unspecified), Intoxicant (unspecified), Sore (unspecified)
Human toxicity	-
Animal toxicity	-

Cultivation

Plants can be grown from seed. Plants can be grown by dividing off suckers. To get the sap to flow in the stalk, the stalk must be banged and shaken then the end cut off and trimmed daily. Tree densities of up to 2,500 palms per hectare occur but only 700-750 are sap producing. Plants are spaced at 1.5-1.7 m giving 390 per hectare where plantings occur. Plants are pollinated by insects therefore contact insecticides need to be avoided. To collect sap the almost full grown head is cut off. About 2 mm of the tip is removed each day during sap collection. Sap flow is increased by banging the trunk and tapping the fruit stalk regularly.

Mode	seedlings
Germination duration (days)	-
Germination temperacture (C°)	-
Germination luminosity	-
Germination treatment	-
Minimum temperature (C°)	-
Optimum temperature (C°)	23 - 27
Size	-
Vigor	-
Productivity	-