Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

Smivs writes "A giant self-destructing palm tree has been discovered in Madagascar. The palm is 20m (60ft) high with leaves 5m (16ft) long, the tallest tree of its type in the country, but for most of its life — around 100 years — it appears fairly unremarkable apart from its size. However, when it flowers, it puts so much energy into an impressive flower-spike, that it eventually collapses and dies. Dr John Dransfield, who announced the tree in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, is baffled as to how it came to be in the country. It bears a resemblance to a species of palm found in regions of Asia; 6,000km away. It is thought that the palm has gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80m years ago."

Geniuses self-destruct

[by Anonymous Coward]

The best people in history have thrown all of their energy into their work, and produced works of genius.

Then they die, because they had nothing left.

Of course, middle management and morons live on. This is why humanity is doomed.

Re:Geniuses self-destruct

[quantaman (517394)]

The best people in history have thrown all of their energy into their work, and produced works of genius.

Then they die, because they had nothing left.

Of course, middle management and morons live on. This is why humanity is doomed.

Actually I think that's just the artsy ones. To the best of my knowledge top scientists don't really have particularly different life expectancies than average people, and while most of them tend to make their major contributions while relatively young a lot of that probably has to do with changing life/work balances and older brains as opposed to burnout. Famous creative people on the other hand probably do tend to die younger. This is likely due to the fact that people find crazy interesting, so crazy people tend to be more artistically famous, when coupled with the kind of attention artistic fame brings it's not surprising their mortality tends to kicks in a fair bit sooner.

From the article

[snl2587 (1177409)]

The plant is said to be so big it can be seen on Google Earth

Given that in most areas I can see individual cars on the ground, I'm not too impressed...

Re:

[FalconZero (607567)]

If it's big enough to be visible on google earth, it's a pity they don't give the coordinates so we could all have a look.

Re:From the article

[Skater (41976)]

Google Sightseeing is on the case. [googlesightseeing.com] Unfortunately the image isn't that great.

One possibility of why it might be surprising

[jensend (71114)]

I think Google Maps/Google Earth don't have the most detailed satellite information for most of Madagascar. So the level of detail at which it's surprising to be able to see this tree could perhaps be one zoom level out from the level at which it's unsurprising to be able to see cars.

captain obvious

[drkoemans (666135)]

if it is a coconut palm, it was probably carried there two african swallows and a piece of string.

Re:

[techpawn (969834)]

It's a simple weight ratio! A 5 oz Sparrow can't carry a coconut!

Re:

[Treskin (555947)]

Sparrow? Your Geek Card, please.

Re:

[techpawn (969834)]

Aww man! I flubbed a Monty Python Quote! My girlfriend is going to kill me...

In hindsight, that phrase only hurt me in getting my geek card restored anytime soon...

Re:captain obvious

[Bugs42 (788576)]

1. Flubbed a Monty Python quote
2. Has a girlfriend

You're on thin ice, man. Next you'll be telling us you played sports in high school, and you spend your Friday nights "out" (whatever the hell THAT means) instead of upgrading to Linux kernel version 2.6.23.141592653589793238.

Re:

[russ1337 (938915)]

... African swallows are non-migratory...

Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!

Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

[j.sanchez1 (1030764)]

Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

Ah...the new Britney Spears model.

Re:

[Aphex Junkie (633436)]

Nah, big difference -- this palm tree underwent evolution and does something useful

Re:

[The Great Pretender (975978)]

Yeah, I would call it the "Jim Morrison Tree"

Nothing to see here, move along

[davidwr (791652)]

This isn't the first germinate-then-die species.

It may, however, be among the largest and the first to use gravity to kill itself.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[WormholeFiend (674934)]

It may, however, be among the largest and the first to use gravity to kill itself

What about lemmings?

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Myth! Myth!

Yeth?

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[Decameron81 (628548)]

What about lemmings?

Lemmings are not suicidal, they are just optimistic: they are sure you're going to put that floor in time.

Re:

[goatpunch (668594)]

Lemmings don't jump off cliffs, they get pushed off by Disney film crews: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp [snopes.com]

Re:

[MarkRose (820682)]

What about lemmings?

Or humans?

This tree has the wrong name....

[zappepcs (820751)]

"A giant self-destructing palm tree [CC] has been discovered in Madagascar. The palm is 20m (60ft) high with leaves 5m (16ft) long, the tallest tree of its type in the country, but for most of its life -- around 100 years -- it appears fairly unremarkable apart from its size. However, when it flowers, it puts so much energy into an impressive flower-spike, that it eventually collapses and dies. Dr John Dransfield, who announced the tree in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, is baffled as to how the it came to be in the country. It bears a resemblance to a species of palm found in regions of Asia; 6,000km away. It is thought that the palm has gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80m years ago."

This should have been called the Valentines Palm Tree, then we could blame it existence on early biology R&D engineers at Hallmark, because we ALL know that evolution is ONLY a theory and this tree/plant can't be more than about 10,000 years old.

Poetic

[Lucas123 (935744)]

The tree lives 100 years and then gives a last hurrah with a magnificant burst of flowers and dies. Not a bad way to go at all, eh?

Giant Palm of Death

[Codifex Maximus (639)]

I have some theories:
Dies once it has produced it's fruit. Possibly to allow it's seedlings some light. Also, more fruit means more likelihood of a successful bunch of seedlings.
How did it get to Madagascar? Well, it's flowers produce lots of nectar but not sure if the fruit itself is edible - probably the Polynesians carried it with them. After all, they are the ones who first colonized Madagascar not the Africans.

Re:

[Jonny_eh (765306)]

Humans could not have brought it over since the article states that it has undergone 80 million years of evolution since splitting from its asian ancestors. Humans have only been around for approximately 100k years.

Re:

[Angostura (703910)]

I have to say there are quite a few plants that die after flowering once, including Agave americana so this is not really that bizarre. There also also animals that die after reproducing (the salmon, for one).

Missing word...

[rd (30144)]

"is baffled as to how the it came to be in the country"

Looks like they left out fsck in the middle.

Re:

[smokejive (1136035)]

Yeah, surely a simple 'fsck /dev/hdtree' would help them here...

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp (442658)]

No wonder this is a Slashdot story pick. People around here are very familiar with palms and reproductive spikes.

madagascar split from indonesia a long time ago

[circletimessquare (444983)]

but if the palm tree is not too evolutionarily distinct, the palm may have been brought there by humans more recently from indonesia, not survived for 40M years in isolation

and i say this because madagascar was populated by modern humans from indonesia first, and africans second

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Madagascar#Pre-history [wikipedia.org]

linguistically and culturally, madagascar is closer to indonesia than it is to mainland africa, which is rather bizarre when you look at a map

indonesians could have bought the palm fruit with them, and the palm might still be found in indonesia, or went extinct there

it's a plausible alternative theory to the 40M years in isolation hypothesis

Re:madagascar split from indonesia a long time ago

[peragrin (659227)]

It is bizarre and yet it isn't. Looking at a current map, with Indonesia many island they were more likely to build boats. Why would africans need to build boats capable of surviving the empty ocean when they have tons of food behind them on shore where it's dry. Indonesia didn't have that kind of resource so they built boats to travel with.

Vikings crossed the atlantic by island hopping along the north.(england, ireland, iceland, greenland, to newfoundland. why is Indonesia so remarkable for doing essentially the same thing in wammer waters(though still deadly)?

bizarre doesn't have a negative connotation

[circletimessquare (444983)]

i used the word as a synonym for "remarkable", which is how i feel about the bizarre (cough) history of madagascar

Remarkable Evolution

[drooling-dog (189103)]

It is thought that the palm has gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80m years ago.

Oh, please don't get them started again...

It's actually an annual

[jbeaupre (752124)]

It's more bizarre than they think. It's really just an annual plant, with its year based on Uranus.

Re:

[Drooling Iguana (61479)]

So you think they just pulled its age figure out of their ass?

Which comes first?

[kermit1221 (75994)]

Does the tree flower after a hundred years and expend so much energy that it kills itself? Or does the tree put on an impressive flowering process because after a hundred years it's dying and needs to spread some seeds before it's too late?

Re:

[Eric in SF (1030856)]

The first. The botanical term is monocarpic [wikipedia.org].

More commonly known examples of this botanical phenomenon are the Century Plant [wikipedia.org] (Agave americana) and many species of high altitude bromeliads in the genus Puya, found primarily in the Andes.

I wouldn't call it "self destructing"

[pclminion (145572)]

Salmon also die in the process of spawning themselves. They basically use up every ounce of fat and energy while swimming upstream to spawning waters and producing eggs. But I've never heard of anybody referring to this process as "self destruction."

Palm trees also propagate with lightening

[gelfling (6534)]

there is a variant of the giant palm that propagates from lightening strikes. A bolt hits the tree, explodes its seed pods and sends them all over the place.

Inspector Gadget

[deadeye766 (1104515)]

"This palm tree will self-destruct..." =)

Agave

[partridge (207872)]

Reminds me of an Agave plant we had out behind our house.

For my entire childhood it was just this big spiky Aloe like bush behind the house. About 5 feet tall. Then one time when I was in my late 20's it grew this absolutely gigantic spike about the height of a telephone pole, flowered, and then produced hundreds of little budding plantlets that fell off and took root. The original plant then promptly died.

It's actually a stunted stage tree

[roystgnr (4015)]

Whatever you do, do not let that "flower-spike" catch fire.

Big deal. Almost all my trees do that.

[140Mandak262Jamuna (970587)]

As a sincere C++ programmer, I always provide a clean destructor for all my trees. AVL, binary, oct/quad, nnary... I have written it so many times. And they cleanly self destruct when they go out of scope.

They split?!

[Squirmy McPhee (856939)]

since Madagascar split with India

Guess I shouldn't be too surprised -- I heard India got jealous after Madagascar did that Disney movie. Which one gets the kids?

Doing the Math

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

The palm is 20m (60ft) high with leaves 5m (16ft) long,

20m = 60f
5m = 16f

Obviously meters shrink, or feet grow, the more you have of them.

Self destructive behavior

[rdawson (848370)]

With fronds like that, who needs enemies?

Re:Wrong vendor

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Shouldn't it be the Iomega tree?

Hrm? No, they'll be naming it after one of the scientists who discovered, Dr. Daniel Nay. It will be called Nay Palm.

Re:

[jo7hs2 (884069)]

Did you click on the wrong thread there? WTF?

Re:

[Bucko (15043)]

I hope I'm not the only one who recognized the reference to Larry Niven.

Bananas

[aapold (753705)]

Banana trees do the same. After they flower & produce fruit, they pretty much die. Not immediately so you usually just cut them down when harvesting it. But if you leave them up, they die and rot.