The Surprising Secrets of Well-Traveled Seeds: Photos
There's nothing quite like taking a seed, dropping it into the ground and watching it germinate over time.
There's nothing quite like taking a seed, dropping it into the ground and watching it germinate over time. Spring offers us a reminder that each seed is a tiny embryo, and you can hold hundreds or thousands of these plants in your palm.
The oldest viable seeds ever found were located in Siberia. Carbon dating showed the narrow-leafed campion seeds were nearly 32,000 years young. Plant tissue from the find was used to grow flowers.
DAVID GILICHINSKY, PNAS
A 2,000-year-old Judean date palm seed found at the Masada, the fortress of Herod the Great, was germinated in 2005, after 40 years in storage. Called Methuselah, the plant grew to over 6 feet.
Benjitheijneb/Wikidpedia Commons
Some seed superlatives: An orchid seed pod can hold as many as 3 million seeds. The largest seed, commonly called the double coconut (pictured) can weigh up to 66 pounds. Some argue the seed takes the size and shape of a well-endowed butt.
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Apple seeds carry a very small amount of a cyanide and sugar compound called amygdalin, but it would take a huge number to cause ill effects. Also, apple seeds have a tough outer coating helps them pass through the body -- and be spread by animals.
On the flip side, the seed of the castor-oil plant contains a potent, deadly poison.
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Seeds travel best, going solo, in hot weather using updrafts. Seeds can spread in the wind over large distances, including from one continent to another. Humans and animals also give them a ride, as do ocean currents.
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Norway's Svalbard Seed Vault is dug into a frozen mountainside in the Arctic. The facility is a last chance repository for millions of seeds from all over the world, which could be used to restore agriculture should a disaster wipe out many of the plants we depend upon for food.
Sources: BBC, University of Illinois, Arizona State University, Straight Dope, CDC
Jim Richardson/Corbis
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