It is a kind of pinned-palm tree. Awe-inspiring, majestic and slow in its growing, it easily lives from 700 to 1000 years.

Although its physical dimensions makes it one of the largest palm trees in the world, this is not its most attractive feature. Its impressive beauty lies greatly in its perfect armony and grace, its appealing gray-colored trunk and bright green leaves.

Its fruit, three to four centimeters large and similar to a panama cocoa fruit, is eatable.

As early as precolombian times, its syrup - an exquisite dark brown-colored, aromatic, sweet nectar - has been obtained with nutritious purposes, thus becoming of the most typical food offers of our country.

At the present, this palm tree is largely cultivated on industrial basis so as to exploit its nutritious potentials, thus asserting its use and permanence in time.

It is also a tall pinned-palm tree of strikingly marked thin and green-colored trunk with smooth, light green colored leaves similar to a giant bamboo tree.
It grows fast, mainly in mild sunny places.

Its limited production of seeds makes it difficult to reproduce.
At the moment, it is possible to find some old samples of it, along with a specially designed program for its growth and preservation at the National Park in the Island of Juan Fernandez, Chile.

There is a very limited number of these trees in adult state in the rest of the country, being possible to find young ones in the regions of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar and in some green houses in central areas of the country.

Photos Raúl Farías G.