The genus Pritchardia (family Arecaceae) consists of between 24 and 40 species of fan palms (subfamily Coryphoideae) found on tropical Pacific Ocean islands in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuamotus, and most diversely in Hawaii.

[2][3] The generic name honors William Thomas Pritchard (1829–1907), a British consul at Fiji.

[5] The leaves are fan-shaped (costapalmate) and the trunk columnar, naked, smooth or fibrous, longitudinally grooved, and obscurely ringed by leaf scars.

The flowers and subsequent fruit are borne in a terminal cluster with simple or compound branches of an arcuate or pendulous inflorescence that (in some species) is longer than the leaves.

[10] They often consume their seeds (known as hāwane or wāhane) raw,[11] use their trunk wood as building material and leaves as roof thatching in houses and temples.