E. woodii, loneliest organism in the world
Posted by staff / May 10, 2011
When John Medley Wood collected a sample of an unusual tree he spotted on a steep slope in southern Africa, it’s doubtful he had the slightest idea of the incredible significance that action would take or the heartbreakingly lonely fate he was inadvertently assigning the little tree stem.
Once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the cycad forests made up approximately twenty percent of the plant life on Earth; today, what many believe to be the lone survivor of the species to have grown in the wild sits alone in London’s KEW Royal Botanical Gardens. Though it can be cloned, the plant is male and cannot reproduce on its own without a female counterpart lookin’ for love.
Full story at NPR.
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