A Bizarre, Colossal Species of “Suicidal” Palm Tree Can Be Seen From Space

Botanists have discovered a new species of palm tree that is so big it can be seen from space. The pyramid-shaped giant also has another notable feature—its bizarre life cycle requires the plant to “kill itself” by flowering.

The palm was discovered accidentally by a French family walking in remote northwestern Madagascar, according to the publishers of their study. The couple, Xavier and Nathalie Metz, who run a cashew farm in Madagascar, stumbled upon the palm as they were walking with their family at a limestone outcrop in the hills of Analalava district.

The palm's trunk is over 18 meters (58.5 feet) high and its leaves are an extraordinary five meters (16.25 feet) in diameter, which could make them the largest ever known among flowering plants. It is not only a new species, but is also a new genus, in a classification of its own.

Experts at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London, say the plant grows to astounding heights before the stem tip bursts into branches full of hundreds of tiny flowers.

"Each flower is capable of being pollinated and developing into fruit and soon drips with nectar and is surrounded by swarming insects and birds,'' according to journal publisher Blackwell Publishing. The nutrient reserves of the palm become completely depleted as soon as it fruits and the entire tree collapses in a macabre demise. The plant is so massive, it can even be seen on Google Earth.''

The Metz family was so amazed by the tree that they took pictures of it and posted them on the web. Kew research fellow John Dransfield, an expert on Madagascar's palms, saw the photos and asked a local researcher to send him material.

DNA analysis proved the plant to be a new genus within a palm tribe called Chuniophoeniceae. Only three other genera within this tribe exist, scattered across the Arabian peninsula, Thailand and China.

"Coupled with the great scientific interest of the palm is the fact that it is such an amazingly spectacular species and with such an unusual life cycle,'' said Dransfield. "In a way, this palm is every bit as significant from a biological point of view as when the extraordinary Aye-aye lemur was first discovered.''

The Aye-aye, a denizen of Madagascar first described in 1788, is the largest nocturnal primate in the world, and is believed to use echolocation to detect grubs in tree branches, which it extracts with its long fingers.

Less than a hundred individuals of the palm probably exist, which means protecting it from habitat loss and bounty hunters will be a huge challenge.

More than 90 per cent of Madagascar's 10,000 plant species occur nowhere else in the world. Unfortunately, less than one fifth of the island's cover of native vegetation remains intact.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

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Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP) Paris

Comments

[William]

"Can Be Seen From Space", well if Google Earth is the standard for that, then my back porch "Can Be Seen From Space". Come to think of it so can my car and the tres in my front yard.

[ganeshbrhills]

How can this tree be seen from space, when even the Great Wall of China cannot be seen? Unless of course, like William commented, you are talking about Google Earth!!

[B.B.]

Well, space is relative. It didn't say "outer space". Yeah, it can be seen with google earth according to the the Blackwell Publishing statement mentioned in the article. But I think the reason why that is much more remarkable than seeing your car or porch on google Earth is that jungle areas like this are usually only imaged from much farther away, while residential/human activity areas are usually imaged from much closer. The tree would have to be huge to be identifiable from the distance that areas like this one are typically imaged from.