Syagrus romanzoffiana

The queen palm is a beautiful tree found in many gardens. It is also called the cocos palm or the Jerivá. This palm is native to South America, but people grow it all over the world. It is a medium-sized tree that can grow quite tall. The leaves are called pinnate leaves because they look like feathers. Each leaf has many small parts called pinnae. Most leaves have around 300 pinnae, but some can have as many as 494.

Many living things depend on this palm for food. Birds like the rufous-bellied thrush and the bananaquit eat the fruit pulp. Some birds, like toucans, pluck the ripe fruit and then spit out the seeds. This helps the tree spread to new places. Other animals like the seeds. A squirrel called Guerlinguetus brasiliensis ingrami eats the nuts all year long. It uses its teeth to break open the shell at one of the three pores. Even large moths can visit the tree. The larvae of the giant day-flying moth can eat the pith, which is the soft inside of the trunk. This can sometimes kill the palm.

Scientists have a long history of studying this tree. It was first described in 1822 in Paris. A poet and botanist named Adelbert von Chamisso wrote about it. An artist named Louis Choris made illustrations of it. They found the plant in the hinterland of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in late 1815. This happened during a Russian scientific trip around the world. The trip was led by Otto von Kotzebue. It was funded by Nikolay Rumyantsev, who was a Russian minister. The tree was named after him.

Naming this palm was a hard job for experts. In the early 1900s, it was often called Cocos plumosa. In 1825, a nursery in England called Loddiges imported seeds from Brazil. They used the name Cocos plumosa in their catalogs. Later, a man named Odoardo Beccari studied many different types of palms. He thought many palms were actually just one type of tree. In 1912, Alwin Berger decided that Cocos plumosa was just a variety of the queen palm. Today, the scientific name is Syagrus romanzoffiana.

You can find these palms in many different lands. In South America, they grow in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. They are very common in many states in Brazil, like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. They also grow in Bolivia. Some palms have moved to other parts of the world. They can be found in Florida and in parts of the Mediterranean. In Australia, the state of Queensland sees them as a potential invasive plant. This means they might grow too much in the wild.