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Tahina spectabilis; photograph StuMatGrant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAStuMatGrant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Tahina spectabilis J.Dransf. & Rakotoarin.

Tahina Palm; Suicide Palm

Arecaceae · Madagascar

No habitat climate
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Tahina spectabilis, photograph Henri Mercier, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTahina spectabilis, photograph R.BENEZET (RuB), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTahina spectabilis, photograph John Dransfield, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTahina spectabilis, photograph RuB (Ruddy Bénézet), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTahina spectabilis, photograph KATHERINE WAGNER-REISS, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTahina spectabilis, photograph StuMatGrant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 12 photographs ›

Summary

Tahina spectabilis, the tahina palm, also called blessed palm or dimaka is a species of gigantic palm (family Arecaceae, or Palmae) that is found only in the Analalava District of northwestern Madagascar where its range is only twelve acres (4.9 hectares), one of the most extreme examples of endemism known. It can grow 18 m (59 ft) tall and has palmate leaves over 5 m (16 ft) across. The trunk is up to 20 in (51 cm) thick, and sculpted with conspicuous leaf scars. An individual tree was discovered when in flower in 2007; it was first described the following year as a result of photographs being sent to Kew Gardens in the United Kingdom for identification. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Tahina spectabilis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: Only 1 distinct land cell of the climate grid holds an in-range record placed to within 10 km; three are needed for an envelope. 32 of the 33 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMadagascar · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker-14.75, 47.431 · in the densest population, 31 records (94% of those in range)
Kew's description“tree” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 33 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 5 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 10 km away. 1 record outside the WCVP native range not used. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 32 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 33 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Tahina spectabilis, photograph 1did not loadTahina spectabilis, photograph 2did not loadTahina spectabilis, photograph 3did not loadTahina spectabilis, photograph 4did not loadTahina spectabilis, photograph 5did not loadTahina spectabilis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Henri Mercier, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; R.BENEZET (RuB), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; John Dransfield, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; RuB (Ruddy Bénézet), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; KATHERINE WAGNER-REISS, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; StuMatGrant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Names & registers

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Arecaceae
Described by
J.Dransf. & Rakotoarin.
Native to
Madagascar
Wild records
33 in range · 5 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22only 1 distinct land cell of the climate grid holds an in-range record placed to within 10 km; three are needed for an envelope
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 4 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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