A Self-destructing Palm?
In January, an article appeared on the CNN web site about the discovery of a self-destructing palm tree that flowers every 100 years. The palm in its flowering stage was discovered on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar by a man who runs a plantation.
Read article: Self-destructing palm tree discovered in Madagascar.
Update: the CNN article expired 2-15-2008. However, details of the find were published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. For press release and photos, go here: New Genus of Self-Destructive Palm found in Madagascar. If the press release article also expires, please google search under Tahina spectabilis, which is the name given to the palm.
Although not the only self-destructing palm of its kind (mention was made of the Chuniophoeniceae palms found only in Asia), it is fascinating how Heavenly Father designed the physiological process of this particular type of palm. It flowers and fruits only once every 100 years, but the process of flowering and fruiting is exhausting to the palm, that it cannot continue to sustain itself and eventually collapses. Does this sound familiar?
So many people go through life doing good deeds and being generous, but they leave out the spiritual nourishment needed to sustain them, or that is, give them a reason to continue their charitable acts. People are only willing to do so much good before they become, at some point, discouraged and decide the world is just too cruel and taxing to care anymore.
But the gospel provides us with an eternal perspective that gives us the drive and the desire to continue these acts of love. Without this all-important spiritual nourishment, we would be much like the self-destructing palm, that at some point, after giving all that we have, we decide to give up, or simply collapse.
Filed under: Patterns in Nature
Leave a Reply