Cyrtostachys renda

Native to southern Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Sumatra and Borneo, this plant is a slender palm that forms clumps of stems. Its scarlet leaf sheaths wrap around the upper stems to form distinctive red crownshafts. The featherlike leaves have regularly arranged, narrow leaflets with pale, waxy undersides. Branched flower clusters develop below the leaves, followed by small, oval fruits that turn black when ripe and contain one seed. It grows naturally in lowland peat swamps and freshwater swamp forests and tolerates flooding. Widely cultivated as an ornamental, it is nevertheless Critically Endangered in the wild in Singapore. Photographed in the department of Quindio, Colombia.