One of rarest plants on earth: Tahina spectabilis

Exotic plants in Hawaii

In February, my fiancé Michelle and I were able to spend ten days in Hawaii, on The Big Island. We had many fantastic horticultural adventures on this trip, but spending three hours with Tom Piergrossi at Vintage Green Farms north of Hilo was the pinnacle of our botanical exploration. Tom operates a mail order nursery there, selling some of the coolest plants on the planet. His garden is an absolute treasury of flora exotica. Unlike Gilligan and the Skipper, our three-hour tour in Hawaii was extraordinary!

Palms

I have always been intrigued by palms. I’ve grown many cold hardy palms like Trachycarpus fortunei and T. takil over the years, but always wished I could grow some of the stunning tropical palms I’ve seen in warmer places over the years. As we were winding down our tour of Vintage Green Farms with Tom, he showed us a magnificent palm with gigantic leaves growing adjacent to his greenhouses. It was a specimen of Tahina spectabilis, one of the rarest plants on earth. Native to the Analalava province of northwestern Madagascar, less than 100 individual trees are known to exist. It is listed as a critically endangered species.

The palm was discovered by Xavier Metz, a French cashew plantation manager and his family in 2007. Photos were sent to Kew Gardens for identification, and it was determined to be an entirely new genus of palm, subsequently named Tahina after Anne-Tahina Metz, the daughter of the discoverer. Tahina is a Malagasy word meaning “to be protected,” or “blessed,” and spectabilis means spectacular in Latin. Tahina has an enormous trunk with a swollen base that can reach 30 feet high. The fan-shaped leaves can reach 16 feet across.

The entire population of Tahina grows at the foot of a low-limestone hill on seasonally flooded land at an elevation 30-60 feet above sea level. Individuals can live for up to 50 years, at which time is flowers, fruits and then dies. For this reason, it’s been given the common name suicide palm.

Efforts are being made to preserve Tahina. After its discovery less than 100 seeds were distributed to botanical gardens throughout the tropical world. Tom Piergrossi was one of the lucky recipients.

This article appeared in the April 2025 issue of Nursery Management magazine under the headline "Tahina spectabilis."