Scientists Find World's Largest Plant In Australia
Source: Huffington Post
Researchers were stunned when they discovered a species of seagrass had effectively cloned itself for 4,500 years and covered nearly 80 square miles.
By
Nick Visser
Jun. 1, 2022, 04:22 AM EDT | Updated 5 hours ago
SYDNEY ― Researchers have made a startling discovery beneath the waters off Western Australia. A meadow of sea grass stretching more than 110 miles long was actually a single plant that had spent the past 4,500 years cloning itself to carpet an area three times larger than Manhattan.
The findings, published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, make the colony of Posidonia australis, or ribbon weed, the largest known plant on Earth, scientists said.
Elizabeth Sinclair, a senior research fellow at the University of Western Australia and a lead author of the study, said her team has been testing seagrass meadows around Australia for genetic diversity for years to see how they respond to climate change. When her team visited an area known as Shark Bay, a relatively pristine landscape untouched by development, they went beneath the waves to collect samples of seagrass to see what types of plants were growing across the ocean floor.
The answer was one.
Its quite bizarre when you think about it, theres this plant in one end of the bay and then you move 100 kilometers down to the other end and its the same plant, Sinclair said.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worlds-largest-plant_n_629707bde4b090b53b7ed338
Wow !!
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The Magistrate
(95,263 posts)Hekate
(90,931 posts)sdfernando
(4,947 posts)and it doesn't look a day over 3500!
Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)TeamProg
(6,321 posts)Wednesdays
(17,455 posts)starts saying, "Feed me, Seymour!"
live love laugh
(13,181 posts)Jerry2144
(2,126 posts)In Mar a Largo, FL
Bluepinky
(2,276 posts)Botany
(70,627 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,758 posts)wendyb-NC
(3,342 posts)That's fascinating. Thanks, for sharing the article. This planet has so many incredible creatures.
Joinfortmill
(14,489 posts)LittleGirl
(8,292 posts)DFW
(54,465 posts)That's older than Strom Thurmond!
Bayard
(22,192 posts)At 80,000 years old, and 100+ acres.
Such an amazing world being squandered....
mysteryowl
(7,405 posts)nature is amazing!!!
EndlessWire
(6,573 posts)but why does it have purple flowers? Who is it trying to impress?
Can this plant live above the water line? Did they sample it? Is it under lock and chain to keep it from spreading? What was that area like 4,500 years ago? Is this the result of somebody tossing out their "dead" plant?
It IS beautiful.
867-5309.
(1,189 posts)so I don't have to mow it.
central scrutinizer
(11,665 posts)Which used to be considered the largest organism on esrth