While going up a tropical river estuary, after crossing the mangrove forests, one may come across a mangrove-palm forest, after which mangroves end and palms (and other freshwater-dependent vegetation) dominate the river banks. In the absence of rhizosphere salinity data, can one infer that these palms, while tolerant of flooding to some extent, are not tolerant of fullblown marine salinity?
You mean, Nypa palm or Nypa fruticans Wurmb. It is one of the most widely distributed and useful palm in the mangrove forests in the South, Southeast
Asia and Oceania. This species is well adapted to mangrove habitat, that is why the existence of Nypa frequently might displace the mangroves especially in many disturbed areas . Local people frequently collect the sap from its flower for "nira" drink or sugar, collect young and ripe fruits as foods, harvest the leaves for building materials, and even collect the roots for medicinal used. Nowadays people extract the sap and converted into alcohol by fermentation method; It is a good alternative of bio-fuel resources. There are many articles in the web, you could access and download it for free. I hope this information could answer your question. Good luck
Thank you Hari, thats very interesting. So I wonder if the only palms that can tolerate salinity are Coconut palms and Nypa palms.
Nipa fruticans (water coconut)- grows in brackish water, and is the only palm considered to be a mangrove. They are tolerant to less saline environment whereas Avicennia alba (black mangrove) and Riizophora apiculata (red mangrove) are high salt tolerant species. Nypa palm has been reported to more productive then the sugarcane in ethanol production.
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