As you may have noticed over the years, I am fairly evangelistic about the need to replenish soil based eco systems as part of the not inconsiderable work needed to save the planet, in terms of not only arresting the decline of the radically dwindling number of species and genus of plants and trees, but a factor of equal importance to the long term sustenance and conservation of all creatures that walk the earth including humans.
Well imagine my elation, when out of nowhere, appeared a completely new branch of the palm family tree, if you’ll pardon the pun; an event that is so staggeringly rare that: ‘It makes you wonder how much we've already lost,’ as it was succinctly put by James Miller of the New York Botanical Garden in New York City on being made aware of the spectacular find back in January 2008.
The object that conjured up such trepidation tinged elation in the botanic world was a gigantic, suicidal palm tree discovered in Madagascar, with the palm representing a genus seen nowhere else in the world, which by the by presented a fairly knotty conservation challenge for a nation not generally applauded for its environmental track record. Illegal logging and slash-and-burn deforestation practices to clear land for agriculture, two major sources of income for the gravely impoverished Malagasy, had effectively destroyed most of the country's indigenous vegetation, decimating 90 percent of its original forests. My being wretchedly ignorant of this nugget, which at least proves that the age of discovery on our very own mother Earth has not yet to come to a juddering halt, for virtually eight years, strikes me as being due to the monumental scale of the problem to be addressed, as governments systematically fail their to meet their environmental pledges, rather than my lack of application.
The suicidal palm bears only a slim resemblance to other members of its family. It grows to more than 18 metres (59 feet) tall, produces fanlike leaves 5 metres (16.4 feet) across, and, when in bloom, has hundreds of flowers towering above its crown. Its Chinese cousin, by comparison, tops out at chest-height and is shrub-like in appearance. The palm's life cycle is also unusual. Based on segmental analysis of the trunk, the palm appears to grow for decades before suddenly exploding with nectar-rich blossoms that develop into fruit, but due to the sheer volume of flowers it has to sustain this depletes the central plant's nutrients, and essentially causes the tree to collapse. According to John Dransfield, a palm expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in Richmond, U.K., only a handful of palm species literally 'flower themselves to death'. Although it's still unclear how long these palms live before their dramatic demise, or indeed how the genus arrived on the island in the first place.
While Dransfield was astounded by the palm's appearance, he was even more surprised at the results of a study of its DNA: Lab tests showed that the palm was a previously unknown genus and species within a family of palms found primarily in Afghanistan, Thailand, and southern China. In a study published in the January 2008 issue of
Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Dransfield officially named the palm Tahina spectabilis. Tahina, is the name of one of Xavier Metz's daughters, the French manager of a cashew plantation in remote northwestern Madagascar who came across the flowering palm while on a picnic with his family. Tahina is Malagasy for
blessed or
to be protected - an undoubtedly apt name, given the preservation opportunity it represents.
Thediscovery has also caused a radical rethink of the islanders approach to conservation. Since the discovery, researchers have found 91 other Tahina palms, along with 50 seedlings, all growing within a quarter-kilometre stretch of the island. A phenomenon that offers Malagasy villagers a chance to reclaim some of their previously lost environment, Dransfield thinks. He, along with the Metzes, and local villagers have set up a committee to protect the palm and put together plans to cultivate and sell seedlings to botanical gardens and growers globally under a major conservation initiative. Proceeds from the sales are passed back to the villagers to help fund rural development and efforts to create a sustainable long term education system,in the hopes, says Dransfield, that the Malagasy people might finally reap some reward from preserving the environmental resources that remain, as well as by reclaiming and restoring further forested areas.
