Serenoa repens

Serenoa repens is single kind Serenoa , in the family of the Arécacées. The kind was dedicated to the American botanist Sereno Watson (1826-1892). The epithet repens (“crawling” in Latin) referred to its feather-grasses often crawling.

Position in the systematic

Family: Arecaceae Schultz Sch., name. idiots.

Subfamily: Coryphoideae

Tribe: Corypheae

Subgroup: Livistoninae Saakov (1954), Palmy S.S.S.R.: 193

It divides its subgroup with 11 other kinds: Acoelorraphe , Brahea , Pritchardia , Washingtonia , Livistona , Colpothrinax , Copernicia , Pholidocarpus , Johannesteijsmannia , Licuala , Pritchardiopsis

Card-index identity

Name binominal: Serenoa repens (W. Bartram) Small (1926), J. Club-footed New York. Gard. 27 :197, T. 1-4.

Basionyme : Corypha repens W. Bartram (1791), Travels Carolina : 61.
Synonymous: Corypha obliqued W. Bartram (1791), Travels Carolina 61.
Chamaerops serrulata Michaux (1803), Fl. bor. - bitter. 1 : 206, 239.
Sabal serrulata (Michx.) Nutt. ex Schult. & Schult. F. (1830), Syst. veg. 7 (2): 1486.
Brahea serrulata (Michaux) H. Wendland, in Kerchove (1878), Palm trees : 235.
Serenoa serrulata (Michx.) G. Nicholson (1887), Ill. dict. gard. 3 : 423.
Sabal dealbata ex L.H. Bailey (1917), Stand. cycl. hort. (?)

Vernacular names

Spanish-American: Palmetto (small palm tree), Saw-palmetto (palm tree “saws”), Scrub-palmetto (palm tree in the shape of rake), Sabal etonia , Dwarf palmetto, Cabbage palm, Pan Palm.
: Palm tree of Florida , dwarf Palm tree , Cabbage cabbage tree , dwarf Serenoa.
German: Sägepalme (palm tree “out of webs”)
: ノコギリヤシ (Palm tree saws)

Habitat and geographical distribution

Serenoa repens the standard was described in 1791 of the Saint-Simons island in Georgia.

Distribution: Florida especially, South Carolina, Texas, south-east of the Georgia and the Louisiana, South of the Alabama and the the Mississippi. Present in various areas of Central America. It is thus about a species of subtropical America.

It affectionate dry and sandy grounds, coastal dunes and plains, easily flooded pine forests or not. It covers large surfaces in most of Florida, being able to form rather impenetrable settlements. By its ecology, this palm tree seems a rustic plant.

Description

Palm tree from 1,5 to 2,5 meters height, with slow growth, forming colonies.

rather thin Feather-grasses fibrous and very often multiple (multiplying palm tree), most of the time crawling, often a little hidden with the age. It is this crawling behavior which explains why the point of the sheets often does not exceed 2,5m top. Certain individuals are nevertheless with drawn up port.
Sheet S: Webbed, flattened, very divided into rigid segments, of color green, green glaucous bluish, green yellowish or white-silver plated according to the forms, with small spines bent along the petioles (from where the name of " palm tree scie").
Fleur S: Inflorescence S incipient between the sheets, their stalk being shorter than that of the sheets. Flowers with 3 carpelles, of color white from ivory, 3-6 cheesecloths. The inflorescences are emitted as soon as the temperatures allow it.
Fruit S: Drupe S globulous-ellipsoids, green then oranges and finally black with maturity. 1,6 - 2,5 cm long, 1,2 - 1,9 cm diameter. They mature during the rain season.
Ecology: Subtropical. Very slow growth in its natural habitats. Naturally, multiplies by seeds and vegetatively by the appearance of rejections along the feather-grass. Resist the maritime Climat S, the saline ground and the weak luminosity. Resisting the dryness. Resist the flood. Extremely resistant to fire. Freezing fears (supports up to -8°C).
Culture: this palm tree is still not cultivated with large scales (in 2006). The nursery gardeners of Florida multiply it a little (seeds). The varieties with sheets bluish green, very multiplying, are preferred for a decorative use. The fruits collected on the natural and dried settlements are marketed.

Food use

The fruits, evoking black Olive S by their size, forms and color, were consumed like “small Datte S” by the natives during centuries in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and in other states of the south-east of North America.

Medicinal use

The former indigenous inhabitants (Indian of Florida and perhaps also the Maya), seem to have been informed of their medicinal properties, including aphrodisiacs (philter of love). One recently identified there and redécouvert certain active ingredients interesting, and the extracts of plant currently enter the composition of several pharmaceutical preparations whose leader was the Sabal fructus of the Germanic pharmacopeia.

The fruit extract (extracted lipidosterolic) was put on the market by certain laboratories to treat urinary disorders, in particular Miction nel, been dependant on the benign Hypertrophie of the prostate (adenoma of the Prostate). It is also used in beauty care to fight against the male Alopécie. It enters the composition of many food complements (alicaments) to the USA, where one cannot approve his extracts like products proprietary medical for reasons of regulation.

The extract has properties relieving congestion on the urinary tract, by slowing down the action of the male hormone on the prostate, which makes it possible to delay the development of the prostatic adenomata. One does not know the molecules responsible for this action. It is marketed in France under the name of Permixon 160 .

Another action of the extract, after ingestion or local application, is to slow down or stop the fall of the hair of hormonal origin at the man as to support pushes back it hair already fallen. It is thus a remedy against the male Alopécie androgenic.

References:

Article of the New England Journal off Medicine of February 9th, 2006: Saw Palmetto for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia . (see the English summary on the site of the newspaper)
To consult the Card general public of Vidal, July 2006

Sources

Uhl, NR. W. & J. Dransfield, 1987, Generated Palmarum .
Duke, J.A. and Al 2002, Handbook off medicinal herbs
direct Knowledge of the plant (Bextrène contributor).

External bonds

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