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Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found 190

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the this-message-will-self-destruct-in-100-years dept.
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."
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Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found More

Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

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  • Geniuses self-destruct (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:04PM (#22096724)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:51PM (#22098916)

      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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Snowmit ( 704081 )
      You got it wrong man, evolutionarily speaking, it doesn't matter how long you live, just how many kids you have (who live to have kids).

      So long as Rock Stars and other artsy types keep fucking dozens and dozens of partners like wild cats before they die at a young age, there will be plenty more of them.
      • It's not quite that simple for humans, since our success is dependent on the kind of parental support and education we get.
        Rock star kids probably end up tremendously fucked up in the head, get into drugs, and jump off a bridge before they breed.
        I seem to recall it has been shown by some studies that having grandparents around can make a great difference. They take care of you while your parents are busy with their personal or work life. They are often able to instill you with a greater amount of wisdom tha

  • From the article (Score:3, Funny)

    by snl2587 ( 1177409 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:04PM (#22096726)

    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...

  • captain obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by drkoemans ( 666135 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:07PM (#22096798)
    if it is a coconut palm, it was probably carried there two african swallows and a piece of string.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by techpawn ( 969834 )
      It's a simple weight ratio! A 5 oz Sparrow can't carry a coconut!

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Treskin ( 555947 )
        Sparrow? Your Geek Card, please.
        • 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 (Score:5, Funny)

            by Bugs42 ( 788576 ) <[superjambob] [at] [gmail.com]> on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:53PM (#22098946)
            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.

            • Sundays I spend six hours in a basement playing my level 7 warmage supporting 2 warforged, a rogue, a scout, and a cleric fight the evils that ravage Stromreach! Am I allowed back in the clubhouse yet?

              • Am I allowed back in the clubhouse yet?
                01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100001

                • Only if you can translate this into text
                  01001111 01101011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00111111

            • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

              by vikstar ( 615372 )

              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.

              Score yourself to see how much of a nerd you are, give yourself...
              +1 point if you noticed his linux kernel version has PI in it,
              +1 point if you checked if his PI was correct against wiki,
              +10 points if you can automatically see if his PI is correct from memory,
              +50 points if you can continue with more decimal places from memory.

          • That's OK, I didn't notice the mistake until it was pointed out.

            As your penance, please sing the "Philosopher's Song" three times.

            Go in peace.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ari_j ( 90255 )
          If that were the only error, you might get to keep your own geek card. Sorry.
    • ... 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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by j.sanchez1 ( 1030764 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:10PM (#22096852)
    Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

    Ah...the new Britney Spears model.

  • Nothing to see here, move along (Score:5, Informative)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:10PM (#22096870) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • This tree has the wrong name.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:12PM (#22096894) Journal

    "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.
    • You should go to the AOL message boards. The 13 year olds there can't go five minutes without making the same type of flamebait remark, either.

  • Poetic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lucas123 ( 935744 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:15PM (#22096976) Homepage
    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?
    • 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?

      Yah, basically it's Irish.

  • Giant Palm of Death (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Codifex Maximus ( 639 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:16PM (#22096996) Homepage
    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: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.
      • Jonny eh said:
        "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."

        Homo Habilis is said to have appeared around 2.5MYA.

        The BBC News article - Giant palm tree puzzles botanists - said:
        "It bears a resemblance to a species of palm found in regions of Asia, 6,000km away.

        It is possible that the palm has quietly gone through a remarkable evolution sinc

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dr_d_19 ( 206418 )
      And also, the fact that it does die and allow light for it's seedlings would also the explain the high rate of evolution. My theory would be that if a high rate of evolution was required for survival, the plant would benefit by actually having a short lifespan.
  • Awww. And I was expecting schrapnel.

  • Missing word... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rd ( 30144 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:20PM (#22097116)

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

    Looks like they left out fsck in the middle.
  • Life is so amazing. Is it not currently the biological opinion that basically all (complex) life is programmed to self-destruct? I've heard it said that death itself (from 'old age') may have been an evolutionary convention - in fact, evolution seems to require it to operate at all.

    This tree is a pretty extraordinary instance, however. Though I do think there are other organisms which self-sacrifice in order to propagate - so it is not exactly unprecedented.
    • 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.

    • I've heard it said that death itself (from 'old age') may have been an evolutionary convention - in fact, evolution seems to require it to operate at all.

      Yes. Early on there were organisms that never died, but they died out.

  • No wonder this is a Slashdot story pick. People around here are very familiar with palms and reproductive spikes.
  • 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 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:33PM (#22097406)
      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)?

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

        Check the maps again, and remember near the poles the distances appear longer than they are in reality (Greenland really is not the size of South America!)

        The hop from nearest islands Maldives, Seychylles) is really really long. Indian Ocean is very empty when it comes to island density. It would take much longer from land to land, and note that boats of the Indonesian were far less advanced than Viking boats.
        • True but you can always hit the persian gulf and work your way down the coast line.

          People crossed from China, to france and back again long before Marco Polo. Just look at a map of the area that alexandar the great conquoerd. no are you telling me the he was the only one to make such a journey?

          It wasn't normal steady traffic, but there were wanderers who just kept going.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by T.E.D. ( 34228 )
      I was going to post this myself, so I'm glad to see it.

      One thing I'd add is that there is, as you mentioned, the possbility that the humans brought their palm fruit with them.

      There's also a possible indirect relationship. If fragile humans in rikety boats can make it that far, why couldn't palm friuts? After all, they are *designed* (or evolved if you prefer) to spread to islands in just this way.
    • The only problem with the human intervention theory for this plant is that there needs to be a reason why the proto-Austronesians who settled Madagascar would want to have brought this plant with them. Recall that the Micronesian and Polynesian settlers had a very select group of plants and animals that they brought with them when voyaging to settle new land. Bringing plants across the ocean, or even for long distances along the coast, requires some pretty fancy preservation techniques. Consider, for exampl
  • This kind of life cycle - slowly gathering energy for a long time, then expending it all in a burst of flowering activity - is fairly common among plants. I'm sure botanists specializing in palm trees are fascinated, but why is this on the front page at Slashdot?

  • 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 (Score:4, Funny)

    by jbeaupre ( 752124 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:26PM (#22097252)
    It's more bizarre than they think. It's really just an annual plant, with its year based on Uranus.

  • Which comes first? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 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: (Score:2, Informative)

      by 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
        Pretty common among ordinary garden vegetables. Frex, a lot of the leafy veggies (lettuce etc.) that sometimes "bolt" (grow a flower spike) will croak shortly after the flower spike matures.

        Probably just the result of natural selection toward "adult plant dies, gets its leaves out of the way of the sunlight, and becomes fertilizer" to give the offspring a better shot at growing into mature plants too.

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

    Not quite, see that entry [googlesightseeing.com] on GSS.
    Additionally, seeing a single tree on Google Earth isn't something special at all,
    there's millions of them in the high resolution imagery areas.
  • and see if it is filled with solid rocket fuel.
  • From what I understand, scientists knew of the tree but had never witnessed it flowering. After all, how could you miss discovering something this big?
  • "Self-desctructing Palm" And guess what I thought about? Annoying DRM-laden *phones that brick themself upon command, self-destructing movie files, or perhaps Exploding Lithium-powered Portable Computing(TM) ... I hope my old trustworthy Palm V is loaded with neither defective-by-design nor the old common pyrotechnical defective-by-mistake :-)

  • I wouldn't call it "self destructing" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:41PM (#22097568)
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:48PM (#22097696) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by deadeye766 ( 1104515 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:52PM (#22097828)
    "This palm tree will self-destruct..." =)

  • Agave (Score:4, Interesting)

    by partridge ( 207872 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:10PM (#22098206)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jgrahn ( 181062 )

      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.

      You probably meant "Agave" the second time too. Aloes are similar, but unrelated.

      Agave and bambo

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

  • Big deal. Almost all my trees do that. (Score:5, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:26PM (#22098488) Journal
    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.

  • 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?

  • A young tree does not need its parent to grow. Parent tree may take resources that the young tree could use if both are near each other. In an environment with scarce resources, it may make some evolutionary sense for the parent tree to die after flowering. Not that I like this idea, though.

  • Doing the Math (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @04:15PM (#22099320)

    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.

  • It is now hoped that the plant will be conserved and that selling seeds can generate revenue for people living nearby, as well as allowing gardeners across the world to own their very own self-destructing Malagasy palm tree.


    I'm not interested unless it's at least 90 years old. Sorry, I just don't have that kind of patience.

  • Self destructive behavior (Score:5, Funny)

    by rdawson ( 848370 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @05:04PM (#22100258)
    With fronds like that, who needs enemies?
  • The language spoken in Madagascar is "malagasy". So is the language of the "Malay" people of Malaysia. The oldest ports around the Western European coast are called "Malaga".

    Is this the remnant of some ancient global people? Did they bring a self-destructing palm from Asia to a giant African island?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by great om ( 18682 )
      Madagascar was actually colonized by Malayasians via the sea. They brought Bananas to Africa.
      • I'd heard about that. How do you explain Malaga, Spain, which was a seaport for the Phonecians, the "Sea Peoples", but all the way around Africa (or across Arabia)?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by great om ( 18682 )
          well, co-incidence is probably the most likely explanation, although your idea is, admittedly, much cooler. from wikipedia: "The Phoenicians from Tyre founded the city Malaka here, in about 1000 BC. The name Malaka is probably derived from the Phoenician word for salt because fish was salted near the harbour; in other Semitic languages the word for salt is still Hebrew méla or Arabic mil." The Phoenicians were a mediteranian people and getting from Lebanon to Spain is far from an act of master se
  • Now we finally know what Q used to make paper for James Bond.

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