Palms - emblems of tropical forests

Palms (Arecaceae) are emblems of tropical forests and their alternative name used by Endlicher, Principes (the princes among plants), suggests that they have always had a special status. Palms are found throughout the tropics, where they are represented by numerous life forms, varying from small but abundant understorey species to large and common canopy palms. As a family, their economic importance is surpassed only by the grasses and possibly equalled by the legumes. Apart from their economic importance, palms are also scientifically interesting across a broad range of themes. Their exploration has fascinated naturalists and researchers for hundreds of years. Linnaeus (1753) named ten species of palm, but that number has grown to > 2600 species in 182 genera, mainly through the work of Martius, Blume, Wendland, Beccari, Burret and H. E. Moore. After Moore passed away in 1980, his successors assembled the monumental Genera Palmarum, dubbed GP1 (Uhl & Dransfield, 1987). This work saw its second edition, GP2, 21 years later (Dransfield et al., 2008). GP2, apart from being a modern update including a classification based on molecular data, also signalled the change in scientific working methods; it was a multi-author volume in contrast with the usually single-author products of earlier times.