Acoelorraphes writhi

This is a palm tree in the "Paseo del Paque" botanical gardens of Malaga, Spain. A sign by the palm identifies it as "Acoelorraphes writhi" which does not produce any results in a web search so I suspect it may be either an out of date name or a very rare palm tree species.

King Alexander palm - Archontophoenix alexandrae

The King Alexander palm (species name: Archontophoenix alexandrae) is native to Queensland Australia and is a popular ornamental palm tree species.

These images were taken of several specimens that I found in the southern Spanish city of Malaga in the University botanical garden and the "Paseo del Parque" gardens.

Judean Date Palm grown from 2000 year old seed

The news of a palm tree grown from a 2000 year old seed that has been given the name "Methuselah" have surfaced in the last few days. According to some reports the the palm tree that has been growing since 2005 from a seed found at Masada in Israel is the revival of an extinct species of palm tree called the Judean Date Palm. This however is not true as the palm in question is a cultivar of the date palm Phoenix dactylifera (this is the date palm that edible dates come from). Cultivars are not different species but rather cultivated varieties within a species. So what had been extinct in Israel for about 1500 years was not a palm tree species but rather a specific cultivar that scientists hope will yield clues about the climate and palms that grew in the region 2000 years ago. It is not yet known if the three year old date palm that grew from one of three seeds germinated is a male or female. There is considerable hope that it will be a female as only the female date palms produce dates.

For more on this story check out the National Geographic article.