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Botany
Pugahan differs from other Caryota species in having many suckers and producing clusters of small-sized palms, up to 7 meters tall. Stems are solitary
or clustered, slender to massive, with conspicuous nodal rings. Petioles,
leaf-sheaths and spathes are scurfily villous. Leaves are 1.2 to 3 meters
long; leaflets are obliquely cuneiform, erose amd toothed with acute
upper margins. Spadix is scurfy, axillary and pendulous. Male buds are
cylindric; male flowers are small, 5 mm long. Fruit is 10 mm in diameter,
bluish-black when ripe with a single globose seed.
Distribution
In forests, near streams, at low altitudes.
Cultivated
for ornamental pot plants in the Philippines.
Parts utilized
Roots, leaves.
Caution !
• Pericarp contains
stinging crystals (raphides, needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate).
The seeds inside the poisonous fruit are edible after cooking.
• Handling of the berries may cause burning and swelliing of the
lips, buccal cavity and throat. May cause redness and swelliing of the
eyes and skin irritation. Effects are not long lasting.
Uses
Edibility
Seeds inside the poisonous fruit are edible, as is the cabbage, after cooking.
Stems yield a little starch which the people of Malacca and Borneo use as sago.
Folkloric
No reported folkloric
medicinal use in the Philippines.
In Kelantan,
juice of the fruit, mixed with bamboo hairs and extract of toad is considered
a potent poison.
In Cambodia, soft fibers
at the base of the leaf-sheath use for the cauterization of wounds.
Studies
• Raphides: Raphides in the mature fruit of the fishtail palm Caryota mitis were shown to be calcium oxalate monohydrate. On contact with intact human skin, an aqueous suspension of the raphids caused an immediate severe itch sensation, probably a mechanic action of the Ca oxalate needles rather than by penetrating toxin or enzyme action of the raphides.
Availability
Ornamental cultivation.
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