Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

250 Palm utilisation for basketry in Xini Ward, Sengwe communal areas, Zimbabwe

THE PRODUCTION-TO-CONSUMPTION SYSTEM

Resource base

The palm H. petersiana belongs to the family Palmae (Photo 1). The species is

dioecious and the proportion of male to female plants is usually 1:2 (Fanshawe,

1967). The short lived male flowers are produced in fairly short tangled spikes

among the leaf bases. The larger, short stalked female flowers are produced

in large branched sprays, which develop into heavily branched trusses of fruits

(September to October), as is typical of the species. Fruits are produced in

large quantities (up to 2,000) and take two years to mature. Seeds are borne

in the globular fruit in a fleshy and edible endocarp. They are susceptible to

desiccation and have a short dormancy period (Fanshawe 1967; Palgrave 1988).

The life of a juvenile leaf is approximately 12 months (Fanshawe 1967),

but dead leaves remain on the stem for over two years (Cunningham 1988).

The stems of juvenile palms are short and are well underground, about 25 cm

below the soil surface (Corley et al. 1971). The palm shoot grows by continuous

leaf production from a single apical meristem (Fanshawe 1967; Cunningham

1988; De Steven 1989), whose loss is not compensated for by lateral branching.

H. petersiana, like all clonal growing plants, produces iterated modular units

(ramets) of the same genotype that are potentially capable of independent

growth and reproduction.

Photo 1. A mature H. petersiana tree with a few fruits in the mopani wood-

land in Chishinya, Sengwe Communal Areas (Photo by P. Sola)

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