Roystonea palaea is an extinct species of palm known from fossil flowers found in the early Miocene Burdigalian stage Dominican amber deposits on the island of Hispaniola.

[1] The amber specimen bearing the flowers was excavated from the La Toca mine northeast of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

[1] R. palaea has been placed in the Arecoideae genus Roystonea, which has ten modern genera native to the islands of the Caribbean, and to Florida, Central and South America.

[1] Many of the characters used to separate modern species of Roystonea, including coloration, are not visible in the preserved flowers.

[1] Poinar proposes that the damages may have occurred due to an herbivore seizing the flower and subsequently dropping it in the soft tree resin, which afterward fossilized.