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Sago palm (Metroxylon sagu)
Photo: Rik Schuiling / TropCrop-TCS, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

On the map in 2 countries palm

Sago palm

Metroxylon sagu

Family: Arecaceae

On our map this plant appears in 2 countries and ranks highest in: Brunei, Papua New Guinea.

The sago palm grows to about 25 m and forms extensive clumps in freshwater swamps and on seasonally flooded plains. It flowers only once in its life, after 10–15 years, and then dies, so the trunk is felled just before flowering, when the pith is richest in starch. The shredded pith is washed with water, and the starch that settles out – sago – is used to bake flatbreads and cook a gruel. The leaves provide thatching material, and the beetle grubs that feed in felled trunks are a prized delicacy.

Description from: Papua New Guinea.

More: Wikipedia (en) Wikipedia (pl) Plants of the World Online (Kew)

Significance in each country

  1. Brunei no. 2 of 5 cultivated

    Ambuyat – cooked sago starch twirled around a bamboo fork called a candas and dipped in spicy sauces – is the most distinctive Bruneian dish. It has a long history: in hard times sago flour was the staple food.

  2. Papua New Guinea no. 2 of 10 native

    For many lowland communities in Papua New Guinea, especially in the Sepik basin, around the Gulf of Papua and in Western Province, sago is what bread is in Europe.