Story here.
“Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm on the island of Madagascar.”
From the Flashman series, I have learned that nothing that can be found on Madagascar should surprise me.
Thank you. I sent this link to my mom, who works for a botanical garden in Hawaii.
Plants are so cool.
Which botanical garden?
It’s really… not all that giant, is it?
“The plant is said to be so big that it can be seen on Google Earth.”
So, it’s like any other tree then.
NTBG. Why do you ask?
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
"Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm on the island of Madagascar."QUOTE]
It kind of spontaneously combusts or something? :eek:
Dies after flowering. I was disappointed. Been watching too many thermite videos online, I guess.
Plants that die after flowering aren’t all that unusual - there’s even a term for it (monocarpic). I think what’s unusual about this one is that it’s quite big, as newly-discovered species go.
What no pic of the flower?
The inflorescence is that big branchy thing on top of the tree
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/africa_enl_1200540133/html/1.stm
The individual flowers (thousands of them) will probably be rather ordinary little creamy or yellowish waxy things
The article implied that it may flower as seldom as just once every hundred years. As far as anyone could tell, they had never seen it in bloom. Now that is something special, isn’t it?
I wonder how the fruit tastes. Like dates, maybe? It must be the rarest fruit in the world, if there is only one tree currently in the whole world who bears fruit.
Perhaps - but it might be inedible - many palms have fruits that are very fibrous or dry. Dates aren’t all that typical of palm fruits.
It is quite remarkable that the inflorescence is so huge. The flowering portion of the tree seems to make up at least the total height. If this were to extend in a matter of weeks, like some agave, which, incidentally, tend to die after flowering as well, then this would be an extraordinary event. Palms and Agaves do not share many characteristics in an evolutionary sense.