root-stem

Updated: May 16, 2025

We were rewarded for our exertions, by reaching another hollow in which a number of the sago-palms grew. The sago-palm has a creeping root-stem, like a nipa-palm, and Mr Hooker had told me that when it is nearly fifteen years old it sends up an immense terminal spike of flowers, after which it dies. It is not so tall as the cocoa-nut tree, but is thicker and larger.

William Henry Giles Kingston - In the Eastern Seas

The sago tree is a palm, thicker and larger than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny leaves, which completely cover the trunk till it is many years old. It has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa palm, and when about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies.

Alfred Russel Wallace - The Malay Archipelago, the land of the orang-utan and the bird of paradise; a narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature — Volume 2