Abstract:
With 39 species, Hydriastele is the largest of the arecoid palm genera endemic to the Indo- Pacific islands east of Wallace’s Line. Twentyfive species are found in New Guinea, the largest tropical island in the world and thefocus of ongoing palm research by an international team of taxonomists (Baker 2002). A monograph of Hydriastele in New Guinea has recently been completed (Petoe et al., in press), which includes nine species discovered and described as new to science during our research program (Baker et al. 2000,Baker & Heatubun 2012, Petoe et al. 2018, Heatubun et al. 2018), ranging from slender understory palms to massive canopy emergents.
