Y: Hey Don, have you heard that biologists have discovered a new kind of tree in Madagascar?
D: Really, Yaël? I would have thought that we'd pretty much catalogued every kind of tree there is by now.
Y: Not quite. This one's an entirely new species of palm tree.
D: What's new about a palm tree?
Y: This type is pretty weird. For most of its life it looks just like a regular old palm. But then, after about 100 years, it flowers! A sort of large, asparagus-like stalk sprouts from its top. Then the stalk spreads out and hundreds of small, white flowers appear.
D: That sounds pretty cool . . .
Y: But that's not all. All that growing and sprouting and flowering burns up so much energy that a few months later, the tree calls it a life and dies.
D: No way.
Y: Yep. It just dies.
D: Wow. That's kinda tragic . . . but also kinda weird. It's almost like an artist creating a great masterpiece and then committing suicide or something. I wonder how the tree evolved that life cycle?
Y: I don't know. There are only about one-hundred of the trees in Madagascar, which might explain why scientists haven't noticed it until now.
D: Well, it's nice that even with everything we know about science, nature can still surprise us.
Y: Absolutely.
