Talipot palm Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Talipot palm

Talipot palm flowering at Kerala, India
Conservation status
Data Deficient (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Genus:	Corypha
Species:	umbraculifera
Synonyms
Bessia sanguinolenta Raf. Corypha guineensis L.

The talipot palm, also known as Corypha umbraculifera, is a giant palm tree. It originally comes from eastern and southern India and Sri Lanka. You can also find it growing in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Andaman Islands.

A Giant Among Palms
- How Big Can It Grow?
- Its Unique Leaves
The Talipot Palm's Amazing Life Cycle
- The Biggest Flower Display
- Flowering and Dying
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A Giant Among Palms

How Big Can It Grow?

The Talipot palm is one of the biggest palms in the world! Some of these trees can grow as tall as 25 meters (about 82 feet). Their main stem can be as wide as 1.3 meters (over 4 feet).

Its Unique Leaves

This palm is a type of "fan palm." This means its leaves spread out like a giant fan. Each leaf can be up to 5 meters (16 feet) wide. The stem that holds the leaf can be 4 meters (13 feet) long. Each huge leaf can have as many as 130 smaller parts called leaflets.

The Talipot Palm's Amazing Life Cycle

The Biggest Flower Display

The Talipot palm creates the largest flower cluster of any plant on Earth. This amazing display, called an inflorescence, can be 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) long. It has millions of tiny flowers. These flowers grow on a branched stalk right at the very top of the tree's trunk.

Flowering and Dying

What makes the Talipot palm truly special is how it flowers. It only blooms once in its entire life! This happens when the tree is quite old, usually between 30 and 80 years of age. After it flowers, it takes about a year for its fruit to grow.

The tree produces thousands of round, yellow-green fruits. Each fruit is about 3 to 4 centimeters (1.2 to 1.6 inches) across and holds a single seed. Once the tree has produced its fruit, it dies. This unique life cycle makes the Talipot palm a fascinating plant to learn about.