North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Betty Mayfield <bmayfield@opusnet.com>]

Ernest,

Another story says King Herod's fortress was on 
Mount Masada. A detailed story from the San 
Francisco Chronicle at the time of the sprouting 3 years ago can be found at

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/12/MNGJND7G5T1.DTL

Betty Mayfield


At 02:34 PM 6/14/2008, you wrote:

> Another date palm seed was sprouted in 1966 from a seed found at King
> Herod's fortress.  I read about it previously and it was on TV news
> today with a picture of tree.  Date palm seeds are hardy.
>
> ---- Original Message ----
> From: bmn@iglou.com
> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: RE: [NAFEX] Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:12:29 -0400
>
> >  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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