From Hamir the Hermit:

Re: Death by flowers: giant, suicidal palm has botanists stumped (Jan. 16): I was very interested to read this article. When I lived in the Philippines in the early eighties, I saw a number of Palms that showed the same characteristic, they grew for years and years according to the locals, and then produced a flower clump, and thence died. The palm got quite tall, 50-60 feet, but the flower clump wasn’t nearly as large as what is shown in the picture in your article, so certainly not the same palm. I was hoping your article might have posted a survey of palms that exhibitted the same behaviour so that I might finally find out what the name was of this palm in the Philippines, but alas, no such luck.