A New Self Destructing Species of Palm Tree Found in Madagascar – wow!

A friend (thanks! Jason) sent me this link to a very cool piece on a new species of palm tree found in Madagascar. This is particularly interesting to because I did my master’s thesis on the biology of palm trees from Fiji – more on that adventure another time.

The article as says that this new species – Tahina spectabilis - can even apparently be seen on Google Earth… So, I checked with Google Sightseeing and you can’t really see it – but hey it makes the story a little more exciting for the Internet generation… Great branding for this palm tree to be associated with Google Earth. Or is it the other way around?

Some of the interesting extracts from the Telegraph:

The tree has a strange lifecycle when after growing for as long as 50 years and to an immense height, the stem tip develops a giant inflorescence and bursts into branches of hundreds of tiny flowers.

…

Dr Dransfield, one of the world’s leading authorities on palms, said: “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the images posted on the web.
“Seeing it was one of the most exciting moments in my entire career. This tree is a new genus and a new species – an evolutionary line not seen in Madagascar before.”

…

Although there are known to be bigger palms the Madagscar find is believed to be the most massive with a huge trunk which towers over 60-feet high (60 feet) and fan leaves which are 16-feet in diameter – making it among the largest known in flowering plants. The palm is so massive that it can even be seen in Google Earth.

And from Google Sightseeing:

And yet not ONE of the many, many, many, many, many reporters managed to include a link to the location of the tree, or even the co-ordinates! And the reason of course, is that none of them actually bothered to check whether you really can see this tree or not.

Fortunately the team at Google Sightseeing don’t subscribe to such lazy reporting methods, and we can EXCLUSIVELY REVEAL the location of the Mysterious Self-Destructing Palm Tree!

Enjoy! And just think its almost the weekend.

Update: a good post on this palm over at Scientific Blogging as we..