Outwardly, the palms in the four genera of Chuniophoeniceae appear quite different. Chuniophoenix are small palms from the forest understory with clustered stems; Kerriodoxa is a squat, single-stemmed rainforest palm; Nannorrhops is a sprawling desert palm with branching stems; and Tahina is a massive solitary palm from exposed limestone outcrops.[3][5][4][6] They differ significantly in their flowering strategies, too. Chuniophoenix species flower regularly throughout their lives (pleonanthic) and produce hermaphroditic flowers (rarely single gender); Kerriodoxa are also pleonanthic, but are always dioecious; Nannorrhops stems die after flowering (hapaxanthic), though the much-branched plant survives; Tahina produces a massive terminal inflorescence and dies after fruiting. All Chuniophoeniceae have palmate leaves with induplicate folds and tubular bracts partially enclosing the flowers.[3][4][5][6]
Chuniophoeniceae is one of eight tribes in subfamily Coryphoideae.[7] The tribe is monophyletic and closely related to tribes Caryoteae, Corypheae and Borasseae, forming the syncarpous clade.[3][7][6][8] In a previous classification, prior to the discovery of Tahina, the three other genera were placed in tribe Corypheae, subtribe Coryphinae, together with the genus Corypha.[9] Coincidentally, Corypha and Tahina both share the strategy of producing a massive display of flowers only once before dying.[6]
The four genera have widely disjunct distributions. Chuniophoenix (3 spp.) is found in southern China and Vietnam; Kerriodoxa (1 sp., K. elegans) is restricted to peninsular Thailand; Nannorrhops (1 sp., N. ritchiana) is found in parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the southeastern Arabian Peninsula; while Tahina (1 sp., T. spectabilis) is endemic to a small area of northwestern Madagascar.[3]
^Dransfield, John; Uhl, Natalie W.; Asmussen, Conny B.; Baker, William J.; Harley, Madeline M.; Lewis, Carl E. (2008). Genera Palmarum: The Evolution and Classification of Palms. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN978-1-84246-182-2.
^ abcdeDransfield, John; Uhl, Natalie W.; Asmussen, Conny B.; Baker, William J.; Harley, Madeline M.; Lewis, Carl E. (2008). Genera Palmarum - The Evolution and Classification of Palms. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN9781842461822.
^ abDransfield, John (1983). "Kerriodoxa, a new coryphoid palm genus from Thailand". Principes. 27: 3–11.
^ abcdDransfield, John; Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro; Baker, William J.; Bayton, Ross P.; Fisher, Jack B.; Horn, James W.; Leroy, Bruno; Metz, Xavier (2008). "A new Coryphoid palm genus from Madagascar". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 156 (1): 79–91. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2007.00742.x. ISSN0024-4074.
^Bayton, Ross P. (2005). Borassus L. and the borassoid palms: systematics and evolution, PhD thesis. University of Reading.
^Uhl, Natalie W.; Dransfield, John (1987). Genera Palmarum: A Classification of Palms Based on the Work of Harold E. Moore, Jr. L.H. Bailey Hortorium. ISBN9780935868302.
