North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[hans brinkmann <hans-brinkmann@t-online.de>]

hallo,

a 2000 years old Magnolia kobus seed is growing well at Japan!
1985 it was found at a excavation of a village from the Yayoi Period.
The flowers differ significant from the up-to-date wild Magnolia kobus.

10.000 years old arctic Lupinus seeds did germinate also.

ciao
Hans


mangodance schrieb:
>   Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well
>
> By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Thu Jun 12, 3:42 PM ET
>
> WASHINGTON - Just over three years old and about four-feet tall, 
> Methuselah is growing well. "It's lovely," Dr. Sarah Sallon said of the 
> date palm, whose parents may have provided food for the besieged Jews at 
> Masada some 2,000 years ago.
>
> The little tree was sprouted in 2005 from a seed recovered from Masada, 
> where rebelling Jews committed suicide rather than surrender to Roman 
> attackers.
>
> Radiocarbon dating of seed fragments clinging to its root, as well as 
> other seeds found with it that didn't sprout, indicate they were about 
> 2,000 years old — the oldest seed known to have been sprouted and grown.
>
> Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center 
> at Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, updates the saga of 
> Methuselah in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
>
> One thing they don't know yet is whether it's a boy or girl. Date palms 
> differ by sex, but experts can't tell the difference until the tree is 
> six or seven years old, Sallon said.
>
> She hopes there's a chance to use it to restore the extinct Judean date 
> palm, once prized not only for its fruit but also for medicinal uses.
>
> The researchers have had a look at the plant's DNA, however, and found 
> it shares just over half its genes with modern date cultivars.
>
> "Part of our project is to preserve ancient knowledge of how plants were 
> used," Sallon said in a telephone interview. "To domesticate them so we 
> have a ready source of raw material."
>
> Her Middle Eastern Medicinal Plant Project is working to conserve and 
> reintroduce plants to the region where they once lived.
>
> "Many species are endangered and becoming extinct. Raising the dead is 
> very difficult, so it's better to preserve them before they become 
> extinct," she said.
>
> The oldest documented seed to be grown previously was a 1,300-year-old 
> lotus, Sallon said.
> ___
>
> On the Net:
> Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
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