Cat Palm

Chamaedorea cataractarum Mart.

kam-ah-DOOR-ee-ah  cat-ah-RACT-air-um

(Not: shammy-door-EE-ah)

Arecaceae

Explanation of name: From Greek chamai, on the ground, and dorea, a gift (JON). (RI2 gives the translation as “dwarf gift.”)   Cataractarum refers to growth by cataracts (rapids).

Natural range: Mexico (ELL). Along streams, periodically flooded (JON)

Recognition: A small (5’ tall), trunkless (with prostrate trunks), clumping palm, which divides and redivides at the ground level allowing the clumps to expand. This palm is denser in aspect than most otherwise similar species. The pinnate leaves are broad and arching with numerous long, narrow leaflets. The small irritating fruits on stalks rising from the base become black.

            Resembles young Kentia Palm or Sentry Palm (Howea forsteriana) and King Maya Palm (Chamaedorea hooperiana), and their uses overlap. Kentias develop a trunk and become solitary and much larger in most dimensions than the other two. Young Kentias may be clumped in a pot, resembling the two Chamaedorea species, but the Kentias are not truly rhizomatous.  Kentias have the droopiest leaflets of the three, and the leaflets arch upward above the rachis before drooping. (In the other two the leaflets don’t droop, or if they do, they emerge from the rachis nearly flat.)  Kentias tend to have long petioles apparent, about as long on some fronds as the leafy portion, in contrast with the shorter (than the leafy poprtion of the frond) petioles of the other two species. The leaflets can be over 1” broad (vs. <3/4” in the other two).

            In Cat Palm the leaflets tend toward a particularly wide base and have a “decurrent” band of tissue extending from the leaflet down onto the leaf stalk.  The leaflets are closely spaced, meeting edge-to-edge at their attachment points. The plants are trunkless. King Maya has the leaflets conspicuously widely spaced (with rachis exposed between the leaflets).  King Maya can have a short trunk.   There are altogether 100 species of Chamaedorea, many of them in cultivation.

Key to Three Similar Chamadorea/Kentia Species Used in Interiorscapes

1. Plants ultimately becoming large and single-trunked (but often appearing small and clumped in pots); leaflets drooping, >1” wide; long petioles apparent….Howea forsteriana

1. Plants clumping trunkless or with only small trunks (all three species may be similar when young); leaflets <3/4” wide, usually not drooping; petioles usually < 1’ long, and shorter than the leafy portion of the frond…2

2.  Leaflets meeting edge-to-edge at broad attachment points; plants trunkless…Chamaedorea cataractarum

2. Leaflets widely spaced; plants with trunks…Chamaedorea hooperiana

Landscape uses: This small intensely clumping palm is useful as a rounded clump in shaded or sunny (if adequately irrigated) settings, and as a potted specimen, including indoors if its needs for humidity and irrigation are met. ELL lists 2-4 months for germination with bottom heat.