Status of occurrence of Livistona jenkinsiana Griff. in Bangladesh

Abstract

Khadimnagar National Park is one of the reserved secondary forests, located in northern side of Sylhet Sadar Upazila, Bangladesh. Arare, fan-shaped palm species, locally called Aanor or Chatipata has primarily been located in the park. The plants have yetto bear any flowers and fruits. Leaf specimens were collected and studied in plant taxonomy laboratory. The sterile specimens were identified as Livistona jenkinsiana Griff. based on external morphological characters. Further exploration is necessary in Bangladesh to find its population status and distribution record of Livistona jenkisiana Griff. When exploring Khadimnagar national park of Sylhet forest division in 2015 to find out the plant species of conservation worthiness the authors were encountered with a number of palms in the stream sides at the beginning of two hours trail near the forest beat office. The area is deep forest with no disturbance from humanity dominated by a good number of tree species particularly Chapalish (Artocarpus chama Buch.-Ham. ex Wall.), Champa (Michelia champaca L.), Agar (Aquilaria agallocha Roxb.), Shegun (Techtona grandis L. f.), Zybans (Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. ex Wendl.), bushy vegetations, climbers and annual herbaceous plants. Wildlife population including hanuman was encountered during the visit. Among the palm plants, one palm was identified as Pinanga gracilis which was listed earlier as red plant in our country but other one palm with fan-shaped leaves locally called Aanor or Chatipata could not be identified in the field. The authors observed carefully its vegetative growth form and took a number of images from different angles and also collected plant specimens for further study using traditional taxonomic techniques (Hyland 1972; Alexiades 1996). The specimens later were brought to plant taxonomy laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Dhaka where this was thoroughly examined and studied for all morphological properties. The unknown palm species was identified as Livistona jenkinsiana Griffith by matching of its properties with the properties given in the Flora of China (Wu et al., 2007) and Major Jenkin’s palm in Thailand (Barfod et al., 2010). Identification was confirmed by discussing with Professor Anders Sanchez Barfod, Department of Biological Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark and also authenticated by comparing with Google known images of LivistonaJenkinsianaGriff. The species has primarily been reported as rare species recorded from Bangladesh which belongs to the family Arecaceae. Earlier the species was reported by William Griffith in 1845 from Assam and he mentioned the species may occur in Bangladesh. Very recently Barfod et al. (2010) also mentioned that the species may occur in Bangladesh territory. After W. Griffith a good number of works were done on the flora of Bangladesh including Hooker (1892), Prain (1903), Rahman and Hassan (1995), Uddin et al. (1998), Uddin and Rahman (1999), Khan and Huq (2001), Uddin et al. (2002), Uddin et al. (2005), Rafiqul et al. (2009), Tutul et al. (2009), Uddin and Hassan (2010), Arefin et al. (2010), Khondker et al. (2010) and Uddin et al. (2011, 2013). But no researchers reported this rare species from Bangladesh territory. Therefore this rare species has primarily been recognized in