'Bittersweet': These unique trees only flower once in their life — then die

Mass flowering of Gebang palms in Darwin described as 'once-in-a-lifetime' natural event Mon 1 Jun 2026 at 12:35pm In short: A group of Gebang palms, which have been growing in Darwin for decades, are flowering for the first and only time. The trees are monocarpic, meaning they only flower once, and will die soon after dropping their fruit. What's next? The City of Darwin will collect the seeds and plant a new generation of palms, though traditional owners are concerned wild populations are declining in Arnhem Land. Almost two dozen decades-old palm trees, of a species rarely spotted across Australia, are currently flowering in Darwin for the first — and only — time. Northern Territory Herbarium chief botanist Nick Cuff said the Gebang palm trees — scientific name Corypha utan — were monocarpic, meaning "they only flower once in their life". He said the palms were "known to do what we call synchronous flowering". "They put all of their energy into putting out this massive inflorescence of many thousands or millions of individual flowers which will bear the fruit," he said. "Once they've set their fruit and their fruit have dropped, they'll actually die." While Gebang palms are found throughout much of Asia, their Australian population is confined to the tropical wetlands of Arnhem Land and Cape York. How did the palms get here? How Gebang palms came to be growing in Darwin's public gardens depends on who you ask. Local botanical author John Brock recalls gathering samples of the plants decades ago, when he worked as a seed collector for the NT government. He said as part of the job, he was "lucky enough to get several trips to Arnhem Land", and on one of them, he brought a piece of Arafura Swamp back to Darwin. "[In the] mid-1980s, I collected several hundred or thousands of seeds — like round golf ball nuts — and brought them back," he said. "It's likely the ones we're seeing flowering are 30 to 40 years old, which is around the time I brought them back." Former agricultural scientist Rob Wesley-Smith said he also had a hand in introducing the trees to Darwin. He worked with the NT government in the 1970s, when he said he noticed a group of the palms in Darwin's botanic gardens. "One of them was huge and it was flowering just before Cyclone Tracy came, as though it knew that it should reproduce before the cyclone might have killed it," he said. "Then the cyclone came and it had blown over." Determined to ensure a new generation of the palms would grow in Darwin, Mr Wesley-Smith said a work trip to Arnhem Land's Arafura Swamp presented an opportunity to collect seeds. "I was invited out to give some support to a cattle project … and I was determined to get some seeds when I came back," he said. "With the plane waiting for us, I got them and brought them back to Darwin." Though how the palms ended up in Darwin may be a mystery, both nature-lovers have said they are thrilled to see them blooming. However, Mr Cuff said it was not entirely clear why so many were now flowering at once. "Whether it's just a factor of them all reaching their age of maturity at this point in time, or some specific cue in the environment, [we're not sure]," he said. A mass flowering event Mr Brock said the opportunity to see so many of the palms in flower was a rare experience. "Darwin people should come to Lake Alexander and Vestey's Lagoon in their own good time and see this over the next few weeks," he said. "It's a one-off event, even out bush,; it might only happen every 20 or 30 years in cycles." City of Darwin arborist Melodee Brencher is among those who will be taking the time to soak up the rare sight. She said she had seen the palms flower before, but never at this scale. "One or two [flower and die] every couple of years, but this time there's like 20 of them throughout Darwin that are flowering," she said. "It's bittersweet. "It's really cool to see because it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but also, now they're going to die." A changing landscape and a new generation While Gebang palms are not formally recognised as a threatened species in the Northern Territory, Indigenous rangers at Arafura Swamp, in Arnhem Land, are concerned that local numbers may be declining. Mr Cuff said that could be due to multiple factors. "Given some of the places in which they occur are very low-lying in relation to the coastline, if we did see any significant changes in sea level, that might change the balance between salt and fresh water that they experience," he said. "Another one would be if there's potential [wildlife] impacts in these wetland systems that they occur in, from things like buffalo and pigs." But Mr Brock said the palms currently flowering in Darwin showed plenty of promise, and were likely to reproduce again when they dropped their seeds. "Already you can see amongst this group, there are many healthy, young and intermediate-sized palms," he said. "So it's been regenerating already." Ms Brencher said the City of Darwin was committed to cultivating a new generation of Gebang palms. "We're going to collect some seeds and grow some more," she said. "They're a really good palm in Darwin, they do really well and they're quite stately in the landscape."