The specific epithet saribus comes from a local name (for what was probably another palm species) in one of the Maluku languages: sariboe, as recorded by the Dutch.

[5] Livistona saribus produces blue fruits, and is cold hardy to twenty-four degrees Celsius.

[5] It has a native distribution stretching through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, Java and the Philippines.

It is also reportedly naturalized in the Society Islands of French Polynesia and also in the Guangdong and Yunnan regions of China.

[5] L. saribus may occur as scattered individuals or in small to very large colonies, at 0–600 m altitude; it has been recorded from tropical seasonal forests, rainforests, near watercourses and associated swamp-forests, peatforests and near mangroves.