biology

Jubaea

Jubaea is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jubaea rather than just read about it. In short: Jubaea is a genus of palms with one species, Jubaea chilensis, commonly known in English as the Chilean wine palm or Chile cocopalm, and palma chilena in Spanish. It is native to southwestern South America and is endemic to a small area of central Chile between 32°S and 35°S in southern Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Santiago, O'Higgins, and northern Maule regions.

Key takeaways

Jubaea belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jubaea to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jubaea from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jubaea is a genus of palms with one species, Jubaea chilensis, commonly known in English as the Chilean wine palm or Chile cocopalm, and palma chilena in Spanish. It is native to southwestern South America and is endemic to a small area of central Chile between 32°S and 35°S in southern Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Santiago, O'Higgins, and northern Maule regions. The extinct palm tree of Easter Island belonged to this genus as well. In 1991, the Easter Island palm was placed in its own genus, Paschalococos. However, this has not been widely accepted.

Growth In its area of natural distribution, young Jubaeas tend to grow near adult specimens, preferring also sunny and vegetated sites. The thickest well-documented Jubaea was on the estate of J. Harrison Wright in Riverside, California. Its diameter "at shoulder height" was 1.7 m (66 in). The largest of several specimens at the Adelaide (South Australia) Botanic Garden in 1889 was stated to be 1.8 m (6 ft) thick at the base. A hollow (but living) Jubaea in the Ocoa Valley near La Campana National Park, Chile, is 1.5–1.8 m (4 ft 11 in – 5 ft 11 in) thick at its base, with no apparent taper in the lower trunk. The largest individual specimen of indoor plant in the world was the Jubaea chilensis at Kew Gardens, which was cut off by staff in 2014 because it grew to the top of its greenhouse. Of the more than 2,600 known species of palms, Jubaea chilensis is the second most massive, exceeded only by the floodplain or river bottom variety of Borassus aethiopum. Karsten and Schenck reported a maximum height of 34 m (112 ft) for Jubaea.

Uses The leaves can be used to weave baskets, and it has edible seeds, widely eaten and known as Coquito nuts. The sap can be used to make palm wine and palm syrup, although, unlike other palms which can be tapped, the whole tree has to be felled; this is now restricted by legal protection.

Conservation The species is partially protected within Chile, although pressures of human population growth and expansion of grazing areas have reduced the population of the Chilean wine palm in recent centuries. The collection of its seed and their predation by common degu may also have a negative impact on the growth of new generations of Jubea. The IUCN Red List considers the palm Endangered. In August 2026, the Council of Ministers for Sustainability and Climate Change of Chile included the Chilean palm in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the highest level of protection, restricting the palm's international trade to non-commercial purposes. A recent study concluded that predation of the fruits by humans, the seeds by the exotic rat (Rattus rattus) and the young seedlings by exotic rabbits is leading to seed dispersal collapse of this species, leaving it at risk of extinction in its natural habitat. Fruit harvesting by people is shown to be unsustainable and is also a major threat to this endangered species. Analysis of tooth residue of the extinct gomphothere (elephant relative) Notiomastodon platensis, which became extinct around 12,000 years ago as part of the end-Pleistocene extinction event, found that it consumed Chilean wine palm fruit and probably acted as a seed disperser for the species, suggesting that the dispersal ability of Chilean wine palm had already been impacted prior to modern times.

Taxonomy The species was originally described as Palma chilensis by Chilean botanist Juan Ignacio Molina in 1808. After being moved to other genera including Molinaea, Micrococos and Cocos by other botanists, it was finally placed in the genus Jubaea by French botanist Henri Ernest Baillon in 1895, as J. chilensis (Molina) Baill. Jubaea is named after King Juba II.

History Charles Darwin examined these trees on visiting Chile in 1832 on the second voyage of HMS Beagle and noted:

These palms are, for their family, ugly trees. Their trunk is very large, and of a curious form, being thicker in the middle than at the base or top. In 1843, a specimen was grown from seed at Kew Gardens, London, England, and was moved into the Temperate House in 1863, eventually growing to 19 metres (62 ft). It was believed to be the world's tallest indoor plant, until it had to be felled in 2013 because it had outgrown the space available and could not be moved. It has been replaced by seedlings from the original tree.

Gallery

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jubaea

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jubaea claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jubaea before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jubaea ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jubaea

In research: Jubaea appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jubaea in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jubaea is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Attaleinae, Drought-tolerant trees, Edible palms, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jubaea outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jubaea in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jubaea means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jubaea out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jubaea in simple terms?

Why does Jubaea matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jubaea?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jubaea.