2000 year old seed sprouted, and there was a tree, extinct 1,800 years ago Bashny.Net

Greetings from distant proshlogo

When archaeologists in 1963 excavated the palace of Herod the Great at Masada in Israel, in an old jar, they found a few seeds of date palm. Seeds are stored in a very dry and protected space. The University of Zurich was conducted radiocarbon analysis and it showed that the age of the seed is dated in the range from 155-year BC. e. 64 year-Mr. e. After that, the seeds were deposited at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan. There they remained until the year 2005. In the same year three seed, it was decided to plant trees in the pre-fertilized soil hormones, and eight weeks later, one of the ancient seeds germinated.

Three years later, in 2008, the year the tree was the height of almost 2 meters, and it appeared about a dozen leaves. Today, this tree is the only one of its kind, because the Jewish date palm became extinct 1,800 years ago. The fruit of this variety of palm trees were a major source of power in ancient Judea, as these fruits were the main export crop. It was decided to give the name of the palm of Methuselah, after the famous biblical character, longevity. Tree grows at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava desert, in southern Israel. In 2011, the year Methuselah were flowers, so it was found that this tree is male.

via factroom.ru