Tree to 8 m high; prop roots near base of trunk or absent; trunk and prop roots with scattered blunt prickles; trunk sometimes with persistent spirals of leaf-bases. Leaves erect to drooping, 1.0–1.6 m long, 7–12 cm wide, glaucous; margins with prickles at apex and variably present in middle and base; midrib with prickles at apex only. Male flowers not seen. Fruiting head pendulous, solitary, obloid, 20–30 cm long, 10–15 cm diam., with 50–60 (–70) phalanges. Phalanges with 6–19 carpels, obpyramidal to angular-rotund, 4–5.5 cm long, 3.5–7 cm across at widest, shallowly convex to truncate at apex; sides smooth to angular, with sutures visible or not, sometimes to base, not interlocked. Carpel apices low-convex to subtruncate to pyramidal, 1–4 mm high, sometimes with a small central depression; stigma ± horizontal.
Home