Oil Palm
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 1:11PM
[chuck] in African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, Java, Science

The Dutch introduced the African Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) to Java in 1848. This, apparently, is the progeny of one of the original plants.  Family's grown quite a bit over the past 150 years, and Indonesia is currently the largest producer of crude palm oil (CPO) in the world. [NOTE: There have been some notable social and ecological consequences resulting from the commercialization of this germplasm]. 

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