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32,000-Year-Old Seed Sprouts And Grows

Swifty

doesn't negotiate with terriers
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'Back in 2007, a team of scientists from Russia, Hungary and the United States recovered frozen Silene stenophylla seeds and remains from the Pleistocene, while investigating about 70 ancient ground squirrel hibernation burrows or caches, hidden in permanently frozen loess-ice deposits in northeastern Siberia, in the plant’s present-day range.'

The oldest plant ever to be “resurrected” has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds, beating the previous record holder by some 30,000 years.

Scientists Revive 32,000-Year-Old Plant Right Out of the Pleistocene - Earthly Mission

aplants.jpg
 
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That's very pretty actually.


Although I'm always somewhat wary of long-ago things being revived. Probably as a result of that particular X-Files episode, you know the one with the bugs in the trees, and the line "Maybe they been lying there dormant for hundreds of years. Maybe they woke up hungry."
 
I've grown arugula, which looks quite similar, though my seeds were of rather more recent origin, the flowers four instead of five petals.
Wonder if any of them were tested for edibility? It's likely the ground squirrels of the era were eating them.
 
That's very pretty actually.


Although I'm always somewhat wary of long-ago things being revived. Probably as a result of that particular X-Files episode, you know the one with the bugs in the trees, and the line "Maybe they been lying there dormant for hundreds of years. Maybe they woke up hungry."

Silene species include the Campions, Ragged Robin and similar plants, a big plant group with no real commercial/food value so reviving this old cultivar of Silene stenophylla shouldn't do any harm - it still exists in the wild today, although modern varieties may look slightly different after several thousand generations.
 
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