Genus of the Week
Week of October 19-25
This page has been created for people who want to learn more about plants, especially in the
context of their taxonomy (Latin names, etc.). This is by no means an exhaustive list of
all available Web resources for a particular genus.
If you like this page, you should also visit the Land of the Glandular Trichomes
, a microscopic look at plants in the Lamiaceae family.
This week's genus:
Carludovica
Subclass: Monocotyledoneae
Superorder: Arecidae
Order: Cyclanthales
Family: Cyclanthaceae
Subfamily: Carludovicoideae
Number of Species: At least 3
Root: Named for the botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow, director of the Berlin-Dahlem
Botanical Garden in the early 1800's.
The genus Carludovica is best known for the species C. palmata, the Panama hat
plant. The young leaves of this species (6 of them at a time, to be exact) are used to weave
Panama hats, a major export of the country of Ecuador. The leaves are also used to weave other
textiles such as baskets. In Ecuador, C. palmata is also called "jipijapa", which is the
name of a town in that country.
Here are a few links to images and descriptions of different Carludovica species:
- Visit the Latin American Plant Gallery to see photos of
C. palmata in flower.
- At the Discovering Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands web site, Melissa Farlow has a photo of
Ecuadorian women
