Nipa palm

Appearance

The nipa palm's trunk grows beneath the ground and only the leaves and flower stalk grow upwards above the surface. Thus, it is an unusual palm tree, and the leaves can extend up to 9 m in height. The flowers are a globular inflorescence of female flowers at the tip with catkin-like red or yellow male flowers on the lower branches. The flower produces woody nuts arranged in a globular cluster up to 25 cm across on a single stalk. The ripe nuts separate from the ball and are floated away on the tide, occasionally germinating while still water-borne.

Naming

"Nypa fruticans" is also known as "attap", "nipa" or "sasa", "buah atap", "buah nipah", "dừa nước", "ging pol","jak - จาก", "gol pata", and "dani".

Distribution

Nipa palms grow in soft mud and slow-moving tidal and river waters that bring in nutrients. The palm can be found as far inland as the tide can deposit the floating nuts. It is common on coasts and rivers flowing into the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from Bangladesh to the Pacific Islands. The plant will survive occasional short-term drying of its environment. It is considered native to China, the Ryukyu Islands, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Java, Maluku, Malaya, the Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatra, the Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, Queensland, and the Australian Northern Territory. It is reportedly naturalized in Nigeria, the Society Islands of French Polynesia, the Mariana Islands, Panama, and Trinidad.

Japan's Iriomote Island and its neighboring Uchibanari Island are the most northern limit of the distribution.

Food

In the Philippines and Malaysia, the flower cluster can be tapped before it blooms to yield a sweet, edible sap collected to produce a local alcoholic beverage called "tuba", "bahal", or "tuak". "Tuba" can be stored in "tapayan" for several weeks to make a kind of vinegar known as "sukang paombong" in the Philippines and "cuka nipah" in Malaysia. "Tuba" can also be distilled to make "arrack", locally known as "lambanog" in Filipino and "arak" in Indonesian.

Young shoots are also edible and the flower petals can be infused to make an aromatic tisane. "Attap chee" is a name for the immature fruits—sweet, translucent, gelatinous balls used as a dessert ingredient in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

In Sarawak, the sap can also be used to make a variant of Jaggery called "gula apong".

Evolution

While only one species of "Nypa" now exists, "N. fruticans", with a natural distribution extending from Northern Australia, through the Indonesian Archipelago, the Philippine Islands up to China, the genus "Nypa" once had a nearly global distribution in the Eocene.

Fossil mangrove palm pollen from India has been dated to 70 million years.

Fossilized nuts of "Nypa" dating to the Eocene occur in the sandbeds of Branksome, Dorset, and in London Clay on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England....hieroglyph snipped...

A fossil genus of "Nypa", "N. australis", has been described from Early Eocene sediments at Macquarie Harbour on the western coast of Tasmania.

Fossils of "Nypa" have also been recovered from throughout the New World, in North and South America, dating from at least the Maastrichtian period of the Cretaceous, through the Eocene making its last appearance in the fossil record of North and South America in the late Eocene.

Assuming the habitat of extinct "Nypa" is similar to that of the extant species "N. fruticans", the presence of "Nypa" fossils may indicate monsoonal or at least seasonal rainfall regimes, and is likely indicative of tropical climates. The worldwide distribution of "Nypa" in the Eocene, especially in deposits from polar latitudes, is supporting evidence that the Eocene was a time of global warmth, prior to the formation of modern polar ice-caps at the end of the Eocene.

Uses

The long, feathery leaves of the nipa palm are used by local populations as roof material for thatched houses or dwellings. The leaves are also used in many types of basketry and thatching. Large stems are used to train swimmers in Burma as it has buoyancy.

On the islands of Roti and Savu, nipa palm sap is fed to pigs during the dry season. This is said to impart a sweet flavour to the meat. The young leaves are used to wrap tobacco for smoking.