Bismarckia is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the
palm family endemic to western and northern Madagascar where they grow in open
grassland. The genus is named for the first chancellor of the German Empire
Otto von Bismarck and the epithet for its only species, Bismarckia nobilis,
comes from Latin for 'noble'.
Bismarck Palm grows from solitary trunks, gray to tan in
color, which show ringed indentations from old leaf bases. Trunks are 30 to 45
cm in diameter, slightly bulging at the base, and free of leaf bases in all but
its youngest parts. In their natural habitat they can reach above 25 meters in
height but usually get no taller than 12 m in cultivation. The nearly rounded
leaves are enormous in maturity, over 3 m wide, and are divided to a third its
length into 20 or more stiff, once-folded segments, themselves split on the
ends. The leaves are induplicate and costapalmate, producing a wedge-shaped
hastula where the blade and petiole meet. Petioles are 2–3 m, slightly armed,
and are covered in a white wax as well as cinnamon-colored caducous scales; the
nearly-spherical leaf crown is 7.5 m wide and 6 m tall. Most cultivated
Bismarckias feature silver-blue foliage although a green leaf variety exists
(which is less hardy to cold). These
palms are dioecious and produce pendent, interfoliar inflorescences of small
brown flowers which, in female plants, mature to a brown ovoid drupe, each
containing a single seed.
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