''Tahina spectabilis'', the tahina palm, also called blessed palm or dimaka is a species of gigantic

palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

(family Arecaceae, or Palmae) that is found only in the

Analalava District Analalava is a district in northern Madagascar. It is a part of Sofia Region and borders the districts of Ambanja District, Ambanja in northeast, Bealanana District, Bealanana and Antsohihy District, Antsohihy in east and Boriziny District, Bori ...

of northwestern

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

where its range is only twelve acres (4.8 hectares), one of the most extreme examples of

endemism Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

known. It can grow tall and has

palmate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

leaves over across. The trunk is up to twenty inches (51 centimeters) thick, and sculpted with the most conspicuous

leaf scars A leaf scar is the mark left by a leaf after it falls off the twig. It marks the site where the petiole attached to the stem. A leaf scar is typically found below a branch as branches come from axillary buds located above leaf scars. Formation Le ...

of any tree. An individual tree was discovered when in flower in 2007; it was first described the following year as a result of photographs being sent to

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

in the United Kingdom for identification. The palm is thought to live for up to fifty years before producing an enormous inflorescence up to nineteen feet (eight meters) in height and width, surpassed in size only by

Corypha ''Corypha'' (gebang palm, buri palm or talipot palm) is a genus of palms (family Arecaceae), native to India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea and northeastern Australia (Cape York Peninsula, Queensland). They are fan palms (sub ...

spp. and by

Metroxylon salomonense ''Metroxylon'' is a genus of monoecious flowering plants in the Arecaceae (palm) family, and commonly called the ''sago palms'' consisting of seven species. They are native to Western Samoa, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Moluccas, the Car ...

and being

monocarpic Monocarpic plants are those that flower and set seeds only once, and then die. The term is derived from Greek (''mono'', "single" + ''karpos'', "fruit" or "grain"), and was first used by Alphonse de Candolle. Other terms with the same meaning are ...

subsequently dying. The inflorescence, a

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

, consists of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of three-flowered clusters which bloom in three consecutive, synchronized "cohorts" or flushes of bloom. The nearest equivalent pattern of flowering is in the flowering vine ''

Bougainvillea ''Bougainvillea'' ( , ) is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees belonging to the four o' clock family, Nyctaginaceae. It is native to eastern South America, found from Brazil, west to Peru, and south to southern Argentina. ...

'' where the three flowers bloom sequentially, but not synchronized. Fewer than one hundred adult individuals of the species are thought to exist and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated it as " critically endangered".

Taxonomy

The species, which produces countless flowers and (after fruiting) dies, is sufficiently different from other known palms to justify the creation of the monotypic genus ''Tahina'', which is now included with three other genera in the tribe

Chuniophoeniceae Chuniophoeniceae is a tribe of palms in subfamily Coryphoideae of plant family Arecaceae. The four genera within the tribe are morphologically dissimilar and do not have overlapping distributions. Three of the genera are monotypic, while the fou ...

; the other members being found in the

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...

n peninsula,

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Fewer than one hundred individuals of the species are thought to exist."Giant palm found on Madagascar flowers itself to death"
''AFP'', 16 January 2008 (hosted by Yahoo! News)
"Associated Press", 16 January 2008 (hosted by CNN)

Description

The palm is one of the largest of the 170 palm species native to Madagascar, having a trunk up to tall and leaves which are over in diameter. ''Tahina spectabilis'' normally appears much like other palms. However, when it flowers, which John Dransfield of the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

estimates as occurring after 30 to 50 years, the stem tip grows a large

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

that bursts into branches of hundreds of flowers. The drain on nutrients this display entails results in the death of the organism within several months.

Discovery

The tahina palm was discovered by French

cashew The cashew tree (''Anacardium occidentale'') is a tropical evergreen tree native to South America in the genus ''Anacardium'' that produces the cashew seed and the cashew apple accessory fruit. The tree can grow as tall as , but the dwarf cult ...

plantation manager Xavier Metz and his family, who were strolling through a remote northwestern region of Madagascar in 2007 when they came across a flowering individual and sent photos to the

for identification. Its name is derived from "Tahina", a Malagasy word meaning "to be protected" or "blessed", being the given name of Anne-Tahina Metz, the daughter of its discoverer, while "spectabilis" means spectacular in Latin. It was subsequently chosen as one of the top ten species discoveries of 2008 by the International Institute for Species Exploration.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from1=Q136855, from2=Q15102118 Coryphoideae Endemic flora of Madagascar Plants described in 2008 Critically endangered plants