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The Fan Palm (Licuala ramsayi) is widely distributed throughout the lowland
rainforests of North Queensland, but in a few locations where conditions are particularly
suitable, they can form dense stands which have their own unique character.
Only 550 hectares of this Dominant Fan Palm Forest remains, and about 3 hectares
of them are found in Chakoro Nature Reserve ("Chakoro" is the local
aboriginal name for fan palm).
Fan palm forest is typically very dark at ground level and has little leaf litter. The soil is poorly drained - water-logged but not sub-merged - and has a greasy slippery feel to it. Overhead the large, corrugated leaves bob and weave on the slightest breeze and rattle and scrape against each other producing strange, eerie sounds. |
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 The fan palm produces masses of red fruits, rather like cherries but without much flesh.
They are a favourite food of cassowaries and large
fruit-doves, such as the Wompoo (Ptilinopus magnificus).
The Wompoo has a call that sounds like "wollock-a-woo-oo" in a man's deep voice,
and it is quite an experience to be alone among the fan palms and suddenly be spoken
to by an invisible person.
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| Among the few trees that can stand the dark, water-logged conditions in fan palm forest is the primitive Zamia 'palm' (Lepidozamia hopei). These are not really palms, but part of the cycad group, which have woody stems but no flowers. |
| The seeds are born in cone-like structures, but they are not related to conifers as the seeds are mounted on the leaves rather than special structures. Its ancestors evolved in Gondwanaland and descendants are found in Africa and America as well as the Australian wet tropics. |
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