Kamikaze tree has key to survival

XAVIER METZ, a Frenchman, runs a cashew farm in Madagascar. While he and his family were walking in a remote area of the country last year, they came upon a strange-looking palm tree with its branches covered in flowers.

They took photographs of the tree which John Dransfield of London’s Kew Gardens saw on the web.

Dransfield, an authority on palm trees and the author of The Field Guide to the Palms of Madagascar, was astonished. It was not like any tree he knew. A botanist in Madagascar was asked for tissue samples. These were sent to Kew for DNA analysis. The results were astonishing; the tree was new to science.