Pinanga Andamanensis

Category
Miscellaneous
Published
30th May, 2020

Pinanga Andamanensis, a rare palm endemic to the South Andaman Island is finding a second home at Palode, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala).

Pinanga Andamanensis, a rare palm endemic to the South Andaman Island is finding a second home at Palode, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala).
It is a rare palm endemic to South Andaman Island. It is an IUCN critically endangered species and one of the least known among the endemic palms of the Andaman Islands.

Its entire population of some 600 specimens naturally occurs only in a tiny, evergreen forest pocket in South Andaman’s Mount Harriet National Park.

Mount Harriet National Park:

Established in 1969, Mount Harriet National Park is located in the south of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
It is the third-highest peak in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago next to Saddle Peak in North Andaman and Mount Thuillier in Great Nicobar.

The name is derived from ‘Penang’, the modern-day Malaysian state. “Penang itself has its origins in ‘Pulau Pinang’, which means ‘Island of the Areca Nut Palm,’.
It has a small gene poolwhich means the species is vulnerable to natural calamities such as cyclones, earthquakes.