The Palms of the Amazon

Abstract The treatment given here includes all the palms occurring naturally within the Amazon region delimited in Chapter 1. Cultivated palms are excluded; accounts of them are found, for example, in Hoyos and Braun (1984) and in Blombery and Rodd (1982). Some other naturally occurring species, particularly those from drier areas north and south of the Amazon, may just reach into the region. These are excluded, since they can harly be considered Amazon palms. Examples are, in the north (particularly the savanna areas of northern Bolivar State, Venezuela), Copernicia tectorum(Kunth) Mart., Roystonea oleracea(Jacq.)0. F. Cook, and Sabal mauritiiformis(H. Karst.) Griseb. & H. Wendl.; in the south, Allagoptera leucocalyx(Drude) Kuntze, Astrocaryum campestreMart., and Copernicia albaMorong. Species found above 500 m elevation in the Guayana Highland are also exeluded. These are Geonoma appunianaSpruce, Geonoma simpliczfronsWilld., and Prestoea tenuiramosa(Dammer) H. E. Moore. Occasionally, Andean species may just reach below 500m elevation on eastern Andean slopes in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia-for example, Geonoma jussieuanaMart.-but these are also excluded.