Salacca is a genus of about 20 species of palms native to Southeast Asia and the eastern Himalayas.Govaerts, R. & Dransfield, J. (2005). World Checklist of Palms: 1-223. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. They are dioecious (with the exception of Salak Bali) and pollinated by Curculionidae beetles.
They are very short-stemmed palms, with leaves up to 6–8 m long. The leaves have a spiny petiole; in most species they are pinnate with numerous leaflets, but some species, notably S. magnifica, have undivided leaves. The fruit grow in clusters at the base of the plants, and are edible in many species, with a reddish-brown scaly skin covering a white pulp and one to two large inedible seeds. The Salak (S. zalacca) or snake fruit is the species most widely grown for its fruit; the firm white pulp has a slight acidic taste. The skin of the snakefruit has a unique texture not unlike that of a snake's skin, rough to the touch in one direction but smooth in the other.
Species
Salacca acehensis Zumaidar. - Aceh Salacca affinis Griff. - Borneo, Sumatra, Malaysia Salacca bakeriana J.Dransf. - Sarawak Salacca clemensiana Becc. - Borneo, Philippines Salacca dolicholepis Burret - Sabah Salacca dransfieldiana Mogea - Kalimantan Salacca flabellata Furtado - Malaysia Salacca glabrescens Griff. - Malaysia, Thailand Salacca graciliflora Mogea - Malaysia Salacca griffithii A.J.Hend. - Yunnan, Myanmar, Thailand Salacca lophospatha J.Dransf. & Mogea - Sabah - apparently extinct Salacca magnifica Mogea - Sabah Salacca minuta Mogea - Malaysia Salacca multiflora Mogea - Malaysia Salacca ramosiana Mogea - Sabah, Philippines Salacca rupicola J.Dransf. - Sarawak Salacca sarawakensis Mogea - Sarawak Salacca secunda Griff. - Assam, Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, Myanmar Salacca stolonifera Hodel - Thailand Salacca sumatrana Becc. - Sumatra Salacca vermicularis Becc. - Borneo Salacca wallichiana Mart. - Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sumatra Salacca zalacca (Gaertn.) Voss - Java, Sumatra; naturalized in Bali, Lombok, Timor, Malaysia, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi
References