The Genus Licuala Wurmb (Arecaceae) in Java

The comprehensive revision of the genus has been done in the Malay Peninsula, New Guinea, Sumatra and Kalimantan. In Java, the revision of Licuala has never been recently completed. This study was based on morphological characters of specimens which are preserved in Herbarium Bogoriense. The several living collections cultivated in Bogor Botanical Garden were studied. The aim of this study is to ascertain the correct names and improve the species delimitation of Licuala in Java. The result shows that there are three species of Licuala in Java. They are L. gracilis, L. pumila and L. spinosa. Two previously known species have been placed into synonymies; L. flabellum to L. gracilis, and L. spectabilis to L. spinosa. Licuala gracilis is endemic for west Java.


INTRODUCTION
Licuala is a genus belonging to the family Arecaceae (a conserved alternative name for the Palmae), subfamily Coryphoideae, tribe Corypheae and sub tribe Livistoninae (Uhl & Dransfield, 1987).It is a small to medium sized tree palm, rarely arborescent and easily recognized by the wedge-shaped fronds with segments that split to the hastula.Naturally, all species of Licuala are understorey palms.In general, the genus does not survive under open conditions and commonly found in the lowland forest.However, some species are also found in the other forest types, such as L. spinosa in open moist place and L. glabra in the hill stations.Traditionally, some species of this genus such as L. acutifida, L. grandis, L. paludosa and L. spinosa, are used as ornaments, decoration, roofing, food-wrappers, walking sticks, binding, making hats and eaten as vegetable (Burkill, 1935;Whitmore, 1973;Dransfield, 1976;Saw, 1997).
The genus consists of 141 species, occuring from Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China (southern part), Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India (north-eastern part and the Andaman Islands).The centre of species diversity consider is at the two main areas, one within the Sunda Shelf in Malaya and Borneo and the other at the Sahul Shelf on the island of New Guinea (Saw, 1997;Saw et al., 2003).
The name Licuala is derived from the Makassar (Celebes) name 'leko wala' (Backer, 1936).It was first described by Rhumpius (1741), in the Herbarium Amboinense as Licuala arbor.As this name was pre-Linnean, so the name L. spinosa as was described by Wurmb (1780), was accepted by International Code of Botanical Nomenclature or ICBN (Greuter et al., 2000).Thus, L. spinosa is regarded as the genus type of

Licuala.
The genus contains wide morphological variations and these cause a serious problem to the researcher in the process of revising.These morphological variations were easily observed in the field rather than through herbarium specimens.Thus, taxonomic study is based mainly on the data gained from fieldworks, such as inflorescences and flowers, which are not always found in the herbarium specimens.
The last comprehensive revision of the genus in the Malay Peninsula has been done by Saw (1997), in New Guinea by Barford (2000), in Sumatera by Ardan (2000) and in Kalimantan by Batoro (2001).In Java, the revision of Licuala has never been recently completed.
Backer & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr. (1968), recognized only two species of Licuala in Java, L. spinosa Wurmb and L. pumila Bl.In Bogor Botanical Garden, there are two clusters of living collection, which are believed (to be) of Ujung Kulon original and identified as L.
flabellum (Anonymous, 1985).Interestingly, this species was previously described by Martius (1838), that was found in the wild of Celebes, however no other collections were found.Therefore, it is considered essential to proceed the study of this genus in Java to ascertain the correct names and improve the species delimitation.The study is based on the herbarium materials from Herbarium Bogoriense (BO) and fresh materials from Bogor Botanical Garden.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Specimens of Licuala which were collected from Java by the previous collector, fresh materials from Bogor Botanical Garden and some other areas in Java were the major materials for examinations.Collecting method followed Dransfield (1986).Morphological species concept is adopted in this study, following Dransfield (1999).The terminologies followed Stearn (1966), Uhl and Dransfield (1987), Dransfield and Beentje (1996).The basic description follows Uhl and Dransfield (1987), Saw (1997), Barfod and Saw (2002).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Vegetative Organs.Licuala is rarely treelike, small to medium sized, acaulescent to shrubby, solitary or clustered.Licuala pumila is solitary, whereas L.     According to Dransfield and Moore (1982), the entire flowers have fallen from the type and in many cases Reinwardt had written the location for his specimens incorrectly.Therefore, so they suggest that the type of L. flabellum has probably been collected from Ujung Kulon.Thus, it is regarded as synonym.where L. spinosa is also found.Miquel did not mention where the specimens kept.I have tried to look for the specimen in BO, but I did not find it.However, it was likely that Miquel used the specimen kept in BO when he described this species.Unfortunately, the specimen is now believed to be lost.
Specimen examined: WEST JAVA: P. Panaitan, M.Sc.(IPB) and Dr. Johanis P. Mogea (LIPI) for their advice and guidance throughout the thesis.I also would like to thank to the Herbarium Bogoriense for the loans material.

Fruit
globose c. to 9 mm in diameter, glabrous, pink or cherry red in young and dark red or dark brown when mature (the colour variations occur in the cluster, not in individual), solitary or develops an apocarpous fruit with three drupes (sometimes one flower bears three fruits); seed globose c. 6-mm in diameter, dark brown and smooth.