New genus of self-destructive palm found in ...(ribed species and genus with an affinity...)

Date:1/16/2008

ribed species and genus with an affinity to the palm tribe Chuniophoeniceae. Leaf fragments were sent to the Jodrell laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for DNA analysis, where Johns conclusion was confirmed, that the palm was not just a new species but an entirely new genus within this tribe. There are only three other known genera in this tribe, scattered across Arabia, Thailand and China. The palm is from an evolutionary line not previously known to exist in Madagascar.

The tribe has an extraordinary distribution and it is very difficult with current knowledge to explain how it could ever have reached Madagascar?says Dr Dransfield.

He travelled out to meet Xavier and Nathalie Metz - who had discovered the palm. It was concealed at the foot of a limestone outcrop in the rolling hills and flatlands of the Analalava district. This area has eight dry months a year and a mean annual temperature of 27C. The palm grows in deep fertile soil at the foot of the limestone hill in ground that is seasonally flooded. He was astonished that this enormous palm had never been discovered before and concluded that the life-cycle must be unusually long for this extremely rare flowering and death sequence to have never been detected. The palm is so massive that it can even be seen in Google Earth.

Ever since we started work on the palms of Madagascar in the 1980s, we have made discovery after discovery ?new species and new genera ?but to me this is probably the most exciting of them all,?says Dr Dransfield. Most particularly it represents an evolutionary line not previously known from the island and one with a highly paradoxical distribution. Coupled with the great scientific interest of the palm is the fact that it is such an amazingly spectacular species and with such an unusual life cycle. In a way discovering this palm is every bit as significant from a biological point of view as when the extraordinary Aye-aye lemur was first discovered.

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Contact: Davina Quarterman davina.quarterman@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com 01-865-476-307 Wiley-Blackwell Source:Eurekalert

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