New palm from Madagascar

2008/01/17 Lakar Iraizoz, Oihane - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Botanika

During a tour of his cashew plantation in Madagascar, the Frenchman Xavier Metz found a large palm tree of eighteen meters of trunk and a branch of five meters in diameter. He was surprised by what he saw and contacted John Dransfield, one of the authors of the Madagascar palm handbook. He was also surprised by the discovery, as he had never seen such palm trees.

It is the largest palm found in Madagascar. When they saw the flowers and branches of the inflorescence they realized that they were before another species. However, when they analyzed DNA, they saw that it was a grain of another species and of another genus. It was called Thaina spectabilis.

The new palm also has a special life cycle, rare among woody plants: it blooms once and then dies. It invests a lot of energy in flowering, as it develops a large inflorescence formed by hundreds of small flowers. And he seems to have no energy left to survive.

Photo: John Dransfield