ABSTRACT
These palms were not even discovered until the late 1800s. Four species are known in the genus, all endemic to the Caribbean (Mabberley 1997).
In Hispaniola, people extract from the trunk a sweet liquid, which ferments into a drink called cacheo (Liogier 1974). In Dominica, Puerto Rico (Mona Island only), and Florida these trees are nearing extinction, perhaps due to overuse by humans (Coile 2000, James 2003). At one point the Hispaniolan P. eckmanii was thought to have been extinct since 1926 due to overharvesting for winemaking, but it has been relocated (Zona 2002).
