All plants undergo germination when a baby plant is growing. Its plant is between the cotyledons. That is its seed which is beneath the soil and collecting the plant nutrients. And then the other parts of the plant will come so soon and a new plant will be born.
Seed is where many plants came from but how long will the seed last? Some seed last for a thousand years and some easily die because of some factors like its storage and the environment. In an article published by the New York Times, would you believe that a fruit that died 32,000 years ago was still revived by a team of Russian scientist. The fruit of a little arctic flower, the narrow-leafed Campion was perfectly stored by the arctic ground squirrel in its burrow on tundra of northeastern Siberia and lay permanently frozen until excavated by the scientist. This would be the oldest plant so far that has been grown from an ancient tissue.
Seed is where many plants came from but how long will the seed last? Some seed last for a thousand years and some easily die because of some factors like its storage and the environment. In an article published by the New York Times, would you believe that a fruit that died 32,000 years ago was still revived by a team of Russian scientist. The fruit of a little arctic flower, the narrow-leafed Campion was perfectly stored by the arctic ground squirrel in its burrow on tundra of northeastern Siberia and lay permanently frozen until excavated by the scientist. This would be the oldest plant so far that has been grown from an ancient tissue.
Cells and seeds can last in time under good environment and right condition, but certain studies say that extreme longevity may rapture the seed. The Russian researchers who excavated the burrow exposed on the bank of the lower Kolyma River are an area thronged before with mammoth, wooly rhinoceros during the last ice age. After the dug, the burrows were sealed with windblown earth, buried under 125 feet of sediment and permanently frozen at minus 7 degrees Celsius. Some of the storage chambers in the burrows contain more than 600,000 seeds and fruits. Many are from a species that most closely resembles a plant found today.
Duvanny Yar, the Russian researcher tried to germinate the Campion seed, but failed. Then he took the cells fron the placenta, the organ in the fruit that produces the seeds. They thawed the dishes out the cells and grew them in culture dishes into whole plants. Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell through cloning. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leaf campion until they flowered, and when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals.Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.
The Russian team says it obtained a radiocarbon date of 31,800 years from seeds attached to the same placenta from which the living plants were propagated. The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents.
Duvanny Yar, the Russian researcher tried to germinate the Campion seed, but failed. Then he took the cells fron the placenta, the organ in the fruit that produces the seeds. They thawed the dishes out the cells and grew them in culture dishes into whole plants. Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell through cloning. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leaf campion until they flowered, and when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals.Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.
The Russian team says it obtained a radiocarbon date of 31,800 years from seeds attached to the same placenta from which the living plants were propagated. The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents.
