Giant palm found on Madagascar flowers itself to death

Yahoo News 17 Jan 08;

Botanists on Thursday announced they had identified a new species of palm that is so enormous it can be spotted from space and whose bizarre life cycle requires the plant to kill itself after it has flowered.

The gigantic, pyramid-shaped plant was discovered accidentally by a French family walking in remote northwestern Madagascar, according to the publishers of their study.

The palm's trunk is over 18 metres (58.5 feet) high and its leaves are an extraordinary five metres (16.25 feet) in diameter, which could make them the largest ever known among flowering plants.

It is not only a new species, but also a new genus -- the taxonomic term for a group that incorporates species. In layman's terms, the plant is in a classification of its own.

Experts at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London, say the plant grows to dizzying heights before the stem tip bursts into branches 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," British journal publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd. said in a press release.

"The nutrient reserves of the palm become completely depleted as soon as it fruits and the entire tree collapses in a macabre demise."

It added: "The plant is so massive, it can even be seen on Google Earth."

The paper was to be published on Thursday in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. The London-based Linnean Society is an international association of naturalists devoted to the naming and classification of biodiversity.

Secrecy, though, surrounded the palm's taxonomic name.

The nomenclature was being kept closely under wraps until publication, in line with tradition involving new plant finds, the Royal Botanic Gardens told AFP on Wednesday.

A French 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, Blackwell said.

Stunned by the sight, 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 percent of Madagascar's 10,000 plant species occur nowhere else in the world. But less than a fifth of the island's cover of native vegetation remains intact.

New tree species found in Madagascar
Jonny Hogg, Associated Press Yahoo News 17 Jan 08;

A self-destructing palm tree that flowers once every 100 years and then dies has been discovered on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, botanists said Thursday.

The name of the giant palm and its remarkable life cycle will be detailed in a study by Kew Gardens scientists in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society published Thursday.

"It's spectacular. It does not flower for maybe 100 years and when it's like this it can be mistaken for other types of palm," said Mijoro Rakotoarinivo, who works for the London botanical gardens in Madagascar.

"But then a large shoot, a bit like an asparagus, grows out of the top of the tree and starts to spread. You get something that looks a bit like a Christmas tree growing out of the top of the palm," he said.

The branches of this shoot then become covered in hundreds of tiny white flowers that ooze with nectar, attracting insects and birds.

But the effort of flowering and fruiting depletes the tree so much that within a few months it collapses and dies, said botanist Dr. John Dransfield, author of the study.

Dransfield noted that "even for Madagascar this is a stupendous palm and an astonishing discovery."

The world's fourth largest island, Madagascar is renowned for its unusual flora and fauna, including 12,000 species of plant found nowhere else in the world. Indeed 90 percent of its plant species are endemic.

The palm tree, which grows to 66 feet in height and has about 16-foot leaves, is only found in an extremely remote region in the northwest of the country, some four days by road from the capital. Local villagers have known about it for years although none had seen it in flower until last year.

The bizarre flowering ritual was first spotted by Frenchman Xavier Metz, who runs a cashew plantation nearby. After seeing it he notified Kew Gardens.

Puzzling Dransfield is how botanists had missed such a "whopping palm" until now. According to him it is the largest palm species in the country but there appear to be only about 100 in existence.

He also questions how the palm got to Madagascar. The tree has similarities to Chuniophoeniceae palms, however these are only found in Asia, more than 3,700 miles away.

Dransfield suggests the plant has been quietly living and dramatically dying in Madagascar since the island split with mainland India 80 million years ago.


Huge New Palm Found -- "Flowers Itself to Death"
Sara Goudarzi, National Geographic News 17 Jan 08;

A couple on a casual stroll in Madagascar recently discovered a new gigantic palm that flowers itself to death.

Taller than a six-story building, with a trunk 1.5 feet (0.5 meter) in diameter, it is the most massive palm discovered to date in Madagascar.

After the plant has rocketed to its full height, a vast candelabra-like structure of flowers develops above its leaves, said William Baker, a scientist with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London.

Baker and colleague John Dransfield have studied and cataloged the plant.

"The [structure] produces hundreds of thousands of flowers, which drip with nectar when they are open," he said. "It is truly spectacular."

Once pollinated, each flower turns into a fruit. The palm's nutrient reserves then become depleted, the crown collapses, and the tree dies a prolonged death.

The palm is dubbed Tahina spectabilis—in the local language, Malagasy, spectabilis means "blessed" or "to be protected." It's the only known palm in a genus new to science, the researchers say.

Their research appears in the January 17 issue of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

Mystery Palm

Xavier and Nathalie Metz, a French couple who run a cashew plantation in remote northwestern Madagascar, first noticed the mystery palm in September 2006 at the foot of a limestone outcrop.

The enormity of the plant and its large flowers at the top caught their eyes. They posted photos of the palm on the International Palm Society bulletin board in December 2006, where Dransfield and his team soon caught wind of the discovery.

"Clearly this was going to be an extremely exciting discovery, and I just couldn't wait to examine specimens in detail," Dransfield said in a statement.

The data and material Dransfield's team collected suggested that T. spectabilis belongs to a new genus within the palm tribe Chuniophoeniceae.

Henk Beentje, an expert on Madagascar flora at the Royal Botanic Gardens, was not involved with the study.

"The fact that [the palm] is described by some of the world's major palm experts makes [the find] pretty solid in my eyes," Beentje said.

"It will enhance our understanding of palm taxonomy, and a new genus is a substantial contribution in its own right—there are less than 200 palm genera known so far," he added.

"There might be new genera lurking elsewhere but I doubt if they would be as spectacular as this one."

Eggs in One Basket

The only three other known genera in this tribe are dotted across the Middle East, Thailand, and China.

The researchers don't know how the newly discovered palm reached the large island off the African continent, or why it destroys itself after flowering.

"The new palm is one of a small, select group of palms that behave in this way," Baker told National Geographic News.

"There is little evidence that the palm flowers frequently, suggesting that it might be rather long-lived and that reproduction is a rare event. It is certainly an extreme way to reproduce—putting all your eggs in one basket."

Conservation Efforts

Researchers have identified 90 T. spectabilis specimens so far, most scattered around a tiny patch of limestone forest just 820 feet (250 meters) in length.

"Our analyses suggest that only a very small coastal area would be suitable for the palm, and much of the vegetation in this area is highly degraded," Baker said. "Apart from a lone individual at a nearby village, no other localities are known."

To conserve the palm species, Dransfield and local assistants have set up a patrol to guard the plants.

The Millennium Seed Bank and the Royal Botanic Gardens are also working to sell T. spectabilis seeds to raise funds for the villagers and help spread the palm.