Linacre Plants

Trachycarpus is a genus of eight solitary-trunked palmate leaved, mostly dioecious palms in northern India, Nepal, Myanmar, southern China and northern Thailand. The species hail from mountainous forests of considerable elevations and include some of the world’s cold hardiest palms. One species is acaulescent, the rest form slender aerial stems that are covered in their younger parts with petiole and leaf base remains and the fibre associated with them.  

The leaf crown and leaves are relatively small and compact, and the slender petioles are mostly unarmed; a few species having leaf stalks with only a few short, tiny teeth along their margins. The inflorescences grow from the leaf base in the crown and are congested but much branched, the flowering mostly yellow, bearing either male or female blossoms on separate trees, occasionally with bisexual flowers. The fruits are small, variously shaped with hard and rough exterior, and generally black when mature. In addition the floral details, the shape of their seeds differentiate the species. The genus name is derived from two Greek words meaning “rough” and “fruit.”