X102.
Common Screwpine Pandanus utilis (Gewone Skroefpalm)
Order: Pandanales. Family: Pandanaceae
© Lisbeth
Mpenjati Nature Reserve, South Coast, KwaZulu-Natal
© Lisbeth
Fruiting head
Description
Dioecious small- to medium-sized tree up to 20 m tall, with a smooth, branched trunk and many pale brown basal aerial roots 2.5–7.5 cm in diameter; branches with annular leaf scars. Leaves arranged spirally in 3 series, crowded towards the top of stems, simple, without petiole but with broad clasping base, linear, up to 2 m long, but shorter on old trees, 3–11 cm broad, tapering in a long point at apex, margins and ribs beneath reddish-brown with many sharp, ascending, reddish, 1–4 mm long spines, stiff, erect, with many parallel longitudinal veins. Inflorescence unisexual; male inflorescence a branched spadix 30–80 cm long, in the axil of a pale spathe; female inflorescence a subglobose head of densely crowded ovaries. Flowers unisexual, without perianth; male flowers odorous, with 8–12 stamens inserted pseudo-umbellately on slender columnal excrescences 10–15 mm long; female flowers with 3–8-celled ovary crowned by a sessile stigma. Fruit a dome-shaped, compressed, angular drupe arranged in a pendulous, long-peduncled, subglobose syncarp 15–20 cm in diameter, consisting of up to 200 drupes, each up to 3.5 cm × 4 cm × 2 cm, yellow when ripe, upper half free, base with a purple or red band; pyrene 3–8-celled, containing several seeds. Seeds endospermous, retained within the endocarp.
Distribution
The origin of
Pandanus utilis has long been considered to be Madagascar, but more recently it has been suggested that it may have originated in the Mascarene Islands. It has been in cultivation for at least 200 years and is known to be grown in Senegal, Benin, Tanzania, Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius. It has been introduced to many tropical and subtropical regions, mainly as an ornamental, e.g. in Central America, the Caribbean, the United States (southern Florida, Puerto Rico), Brazil, India and Indonesia. No wild populations are known.