to interested plant growers in Florida with the Plant Introduction number 123380 under the name A. polystachyum. It was noticed however, that neither Hemsley nor Wendland had properly described the species, thus Loomis decided to rename the taxon A. alatum. Typification Loomis did not designate a single holotype, it is difficult to fit all the representative organs of a large palm on a single herbarium sheet, but a type series of sheets of palm parts, stored at the United States National Herbarium, collected "along the Río Hondo near the fields of Santa Clara" by Orator F. Cook and C. B. Doyle in 1903. Classification A. mexicanum is very similar. Palm expert Andrew James Henderson and colleagues noted in their 1995 Field Guide to the Palms of the Americas that it was so similar, it might even be conspecific. Max Burret had classified A. mexicanum in a segregate genus Hexopetion in 1934, and when Loomis described A. alatum in 1939 he neglected comparing the two taxa, but none of the important publications on Neotropical palm taxonomy which were published in the rest of the 20th century followed Burret. Jean-Christophe Pintaud and colleagues placed A. alatum in Hexopetion in their 2008 paper, re-describing Hexopetion in the process to allow for the inclusion, although few seem to have followed their taxonomic interpretation. In 2011 a group containing some of the previous authors published a study which looked at the differences between related palms in a number of plastid DNA and nuclear markers in order to elucidate their phylogeny. This study found strong evidence that A. alatum and A. mexicanum form a monophyletic group sister to the remaining Astrocaryum species. Distribution Astrocaryum alatum is a widespread and common species found in eastern Honduras (Gracias a Dios Department), Costa Rica, eastern Nicaragua and western Panama. It occurs on both coasts of Costa Rica, although the IUCN claims it mostly occurs on the Caribbean side (although the distribution map as well as the list of national parks provided by the same website contradicts this). In Panama it occurs in the provinces of Bocas del Toro, Coclé, Colón, San Blas and Veraguas, as well as the formerly US controlled Panama Canal Zone. Henderson et al. state that the Panama Canal appears to mark its eastern limit, but San Blas lies to the east of the Canal. It is common near the Canal around the town of Santa