In Palms of Madagascar (Dransfield & Beentje 1995) this species keys out to the two couplets that include Dypsis saintelucei , D. tsaravoasira and D. nauseosa . It differs from the first two in having ruminate endosperm while from the last it differs in having much shorter, more slender rachillae. Dypsis tanalensis , an incompletely known taxon, is mentioned also at this point in the key, but this also has a ruminate endosperm. In general appearance D. carlsmithii does not resemble any of these. In some ways the inflorescence resembles that of D. prestoniana and D. tokoravina , but these two are even more robust and have fascicled leaflets. (J. Dransfield and J. Marcus. 2002)/Palmweb.