High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Phytelephas is a genus containing six species of palms (family Arecaceae), occurring from southern Panama along the Andes to Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. They are commonly known as ivory palms, ivory-nut palms or tagua palms; their scientific name means "plant elephant". This and the first two of the common names refer to the very hard white endosperm of their seeds (tagua nuts), which resembles elephant ivory.