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Among the walking stick palms, Linospadix monostachya, is undoubtedly a very worthwhile species. Indigenous to northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, it is an understorey palm of the rainforest areas.

My first recollections of this delightful miniature palm go back as far as 1931 when, as a child, I encountered it from a German grandfather trying to teach me the art of sword fencing. One of his walking canes was a Bacularia, and this I learned was one of the many stripped from the northern New South Wales rainforests at the ending of World War I, to be used as walking sticks by returning, wounded diggers. The idea of conservation was never the issue then, and many acts of mass destruction against the flora and fauna were considered normal in the name of progress.

Some specimens of the walking stick palm, having a height of 3 metres in the north of New South Wales and the Queensland Lamington Plateau, have a trunk (stem) diameter of 3cm. These were the type usually used for walking canes. The dug palm had all its roots removed, generally leaving a cylindrical to slightly oval, knobby ball which, when smoothed, sanded and polished, made an excellent handgrip. The stem was then cut to a desired length and also polished. A rubber button was fitted to the end. The toughness and strength of this cane has to be experienced to be believed! I have since seen specimens where the handgrip end was ornately carved.

This attractive little palm, from the Arecaceae family, once known as Bacularia, but now placed into the genus Linospadix, is extremely hardy and will grow in a wide band of climatic conditions, but it is better used as an understorey plant and given some shade. (Actually, the name Bacularia did mean walking stick, while the name change to Linospadix simply means in a single spike, referring to the inflorescence of these palms).

My first encounter with them in their habitat was with a group of Australian plant enthusiasts, around 1968, at the Gibraltar Range in New South Wales. We were all conversant with this species, but I, for one, had not seen it in the wild.

Most of our morning walks had taken in the abundant flora and also some flowering Waratahs. A species of grass tree (Xanthorrhoea sp.) was also very prevalent. On climbing a steep ridge and entering really dense rainforest, it was quite an experience to find a great colony of Linospadix growing beneath the trees and Archontophoenix palm canopy. Average height was 2 metres, with a few slightly larger.

No seed was evident, but some plants had many arching spikes of small buds. These were generally greenish-cream florets, there being both male and female flowers on the same spike. Where the crown-shaft generally is, the crowded leaf bases were packed with coarse fibre, but there was no crown-shaft. All the trunk stems I observed were about 3cm thick and the stems prominently ringed from the base to just about where the foliage sprouted.

Linospadix monostachya has a delicate but dense crown. The full leaves can be 90-120cm long. The actual leaflets are pinnately divided into a number of broad and narrow leaflets, each one being serrated on the square ends. The number of dull to glossy green-grey leaflets is quite variable. Those examined at the Gibraltar Range had four narrow, opposite pairs, one wide fishtail pair, then a narrow pair ending terminally with a broad fishtail. All segments pointed forward.

During the seventies, we became very involved with Binna Burra, a guest lodge situated on a 1000 metre peak in the Lamington National Park. As I was involved in their annual Greenfinger Week for nine years, this gave me ample time for a long association with the little Linospadix. The palm grows naturally in approximately two-thirds of these subtropical rainforest areas, and around Binna Burra and OReillys Guest House there would be some 200km of walking tracks.

In many of the walks, especially down into the cool valleys, the forest canopy is rich with Archontophoenix cunninghamiana (Piccabeen Palm) and the understorey has many colonies of the Linospadix. In the early autumn the arching spike florets become strings of orange or red seed beads peculiar to this palm. In survival emergencies, both the emerging crown leaves and the red seeds are edible.

The florets are initially encased in two small leaf sepals, the one above longer than the one beneath. When the top one falls off, the floret opens. In the case of the male, it is pale yellow, ovate, and opens only slightly. The female floret is greenish-yellow, small than the male, and so arranged that there is one female between two males.

I have found this little palm to be quite variable. So much so, that I often thought some were another species. At River Road, Peachester, slightly inland from Beerwah (in southern Queensland), it occurs in a 100 hectare section of an untouched rainforest scrub still standing. Here the plants attain the height of 4.2 metres, have a stem thickness of only 2.2cm, and have quite a pronounced swollen base. The crown is much as usual, except the leaf stems are shorter. This, however, is merely considered a taller form, and about as big as it will grow.

To sum up, it could well be asked that if this plant is so desirable and with so many things going for it, why is it not readily available in the nurseries? Seed germination tales, at the least, six months in the very best of conditions. This alone is a hazard. Then, the seedling palm has to become big enough for wholesale to handle. I have found that this makes it a collectors piece, because only specialised nurseries will handle it. Like the seedling exotic Sabal palm, wholesalers avoid this species because of the slow initial growth pattern. Nurseries specialising in the Arecaceae family (palms) or those that sell mostly Australian plants are the most likely places to obtain this little gem.

In cultivation it offers few problems, being able to stand full sunshine (but preferring half shade). Loving a deep rich loamy soil, it also grows well in a shallow soil if a quantity of compost is around it and ample water plus drainage is there. This palm will not tolerate transplanting, unless a fair bit of T.L.C. is exercised.

(This article was written by the late Len Butt during the time when he was Leader of the Cycad/Zamiad & Palm Study Group.)