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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."

9 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. captain obvious by drkoemans · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:captain obvious by Bugs42 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

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      Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.
  2. Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found by j.sanchez1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found

    Ah...the new Britney Spears model.

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    Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
  3. Re:Nothing to see here, move along by WormholeFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    What about lemmings?

  4. Missing word... by rd · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Looks like they left out fsck in the middle.
  5. Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  6. Re:Wrong vendor by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. Big deal. Almost all my trees do that. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  8. Self destructive behavior by rdawson · · Score: 5, Funny

    With fronds like that, who needs enemies?