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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."
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.
Given that in most areas I can see individual cars on the ground, I'm not too impressed...
if it is a coconut palm, it was probably carried there two african swallows and a piece of string.
Bizarre Self-Destructing Palm Tree Found
Ah...the new Britney Spears model.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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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?
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.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
"is baffled as to how the it came to be in the country"
Looks like they left out fsck in the middle.No wonder this is a Slashdot story pick. People around here are very familiar with palms and reproductive spikes.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's more bizarre than they think. It's really just an annual plant, with its year based on Uranus.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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?
My blog
"The plant is said to be so big it can be seen on Google Earth"
Not quite, see that entry 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.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If you mean the lemmings that run off a cliff right after spreading their seed then maybe.
Many a lemming has run off a cliff without producing offspring. This is A Good Thing.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"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 :-)
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."
Hey, I don't need your abuse, I'm quite capable of abusing myself!
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.
"This palm tree will self-destruct..." =)
Isn't that like a century plant?
It's fairly common here (south of Spain), I have one in my garden!!
Did you click on the wrong thread there? WTF?
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.
i used the word as a synonym for "remarkable", which is how i feel about the bizarre (cough) history of madagascar
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Niven's stage trees.
It is very similar to Bamboo flowering... http://www.bamboogarden.com/when%20bamboo%20flowers.htm
"They're growing mechanical trees now. They grow to their full height, then they chop themselves down."
-- Lauri Anderson (from which song, I forget.)
Technically, murder-suicide does not violate the golden rule.
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.
I will blame you and everybody else who voted for someone who had *no* chance in h3ll of winning. If you didn't like Bush, you should have voted for Gore or Kerry, unless you think they would have been worse than Bush...which while possible I see as being highly unlikely. Otherwise any vote for your 3rd party, or not voting at all, was a vote *for* Bush
A friend of mine voted for Colin Powell...because it made her feel good. Um, great you feel good and we'll all go to h3ll in a handbasket, but dammit you go feel good!
If you want a 3rd party choice, build up a party but don't try and get an independent into the top office on the first shot, it just won't happen.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Whatever you do, do not let that "flower-spike" catch fire.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Guess I shouldn't be too surprised -- I heard India got jealous after Madagascar did that Disney movie. Which one gets the kids?
Seriously, what am I supposed to do with this information?
Hey, ladies, have I got a story for you!
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.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
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.
So, essentially, it is the Cicada of plant species.
I think you misunderstood the reference. I actually voted for Gore/Kerry.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Yes. Early on there were organisms that never died, but they died out.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
20m = 60f
5m = 16f
Obviously meters shrink, or feet grow, the more you have of them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Robert Reed's "Good Mountain" appears in Gardner Dozois's 24th "Year's Best Science Fiction". It's about life on a planet half-covered with self-destructing trees.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I'm not interested unless it's at least 90 years old. Sorry, I just don't have that kind of patience.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
With fronds like that, who needs enemies?
He did miss the reference.
Or at least didn't understand it.
Some people are just looking for a reason to exclaim there pet cause.
Well, Kang is coming *ow* and he *ow* brought his *ow* whip.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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?
--
make install -not war
Now we finally know what Q used to make paper for James Bond.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
now lecture me again about the supposed western soft racism in my remarks
what a blind moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The most majestic would be the Caryotas, Fishtail Palms, where the solitary columnar types go off in one spectacular year to year and a half reproductive frenzy. Then they die. Caryota "maxima," and obtusa, are especially jaw dropping.
Also Arengas, Corypha umbraculifera, etc. do this.
Must have been a *very* slow news day!!
http://www.plantapalm.com/vpe/introduction/vpe_introduction.htm
http://www.palmtreeservices.com.au/news/2007/02/11/monocarpic-palms/
-Luen
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates himself was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will With half a pint of shandy got particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart "I drink therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
It will be called Nay Palm.
I love the smell of Nay Palms in the morning. It smells like...a fig tree.
I wonder if it's related to the Talipot palm, which has a similar life cycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talipot_palm
"Follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind.
thanks for contributing to the tired-joke-of-the-year club -- Do you not see the irony in this statement?
in the immortal words of socrates, "i drank what?"
I have to admit, this is the best off-topic goatse snipe in recent /. history.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I Like to Move It, Move It
Kew Gardens news story, with lots more images and information.
Oh making puns, you must be some unix beardy, I'm sorry your life sucks.
living to a hundred then dying in the process of reprodution? Thats how I plan on going to. Man, plants are always stealing my best ideas...
To illustrate, suppose that two people of the same age are on the short list to win one of the prizes.
Since the committee can't make up its mind, it is about to decide to split the award between the two of them.
But then, one of them dies just before that decision is made.
The living one will get the prize, and the dead one won't.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana