has a 12–30 cm long prophyll. The inflorescence develops within a woody, glabrous (hairless) spathe which eventually grows 70–105 cm in total length, and has a swollen portion at the end 61–81 cm long and 6–13 cm wide. This swollen portion is often coloured purplish and the whole spathe may sometimes be smooth or striate. The inflorescence has a 35–60 cm long peduncle. The rachis of the inflorescence is 25–49 cm long and has 51-90 rachillae (branches) which are 8–32 cm long. Both sexes of the flowers are coloured purple, although according to Nigel Kembrey, a British horticulturist specialised in Butia, some forms may have yellow flowers. The staminate (male) flowers are 6–7mm in length and have a prominent pedicel (stalk). The pistillate (female) flowers are more or less globose (round), 5–6mm in length, and with sepals and petals about equal in size. Spathe appearance is opposite to that of leaf emission, with spathes developing after the season of high temperatures and rainfall, with the emission peak happening at the end of the rainy season (usually May to July). There are individual plants in some state of flowering in the population throughout the year. Fruit The shape of the fruit is ovoid, as is the nut. The ripe fruit is 2.3–3 cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide and have a juicy, acidic-sweet flesh. The nut contains 1 to 2 seeds. The ripe fruit is generally the colour purple (or 'wine'), although some forms also carry yellow fruit. The fruit has a beak 4-5mm in length and a persistent perianth 7-8mm high. The nut is rather small for a Butia. Infraspecific diversity Renata Corrêa Martins in her thesis on the palms of Goiás notes that the population at different localities may differ from each other, with the northern population in Cavalcante having much smaller trunks than the palms found in southeastern Goiás. Similar species It is the only species of Butia without teeth or spines on the petiole which has purple-coloured spathes, flowers and fruit (at maturity). Glassman in 1979 considered it superficially similar to B. capitata (which included B. odorata at the time), differing primarily from that by the lack of teeth along the margins of the petioles, the long acuminate tips of the pinnae (leaflets) as opposed to obtuse or acute, and the generally purplish spathes, spadices, flowers and fruit. He considered it closely related to B. archeri due to