Australian pines
Michael.Chamberland (23274MJC@MSU.EDU)
Sun, 01 Jan 95 11:20 EST
> As long as were apparently adopting this subject as an okay off-topic
> topic, I might as well add my two cents. I think this discovery is
> fantastic...a group of pines, virtually unchanged for 200 million years,
> growing in some remote microclimate on the planet. Geez, only 39 of them
> (23 adult, 16 juvenile), that must be about the rarest plant on the
> planet. I understand that at least one seedling has germinated in the
> laboratory, and tissue cultures are being tried also. Just amazing...a
> fossil that has likely been rescued from the brink of extinction. When
> we are causing so many things to become extinct, rescuing a few,
> especially ones like this, seems a really positive kind of thing.
This discovery seems a lttle like deja vu. Were not two other gymnosperm
"living fossils", the Ginkgo and the Metasequoia, also discovered from a
small stand of survivors?
I vaguely remember another botanical wonder discovery a few years back...
of a plant where the gynoecium formed a whorl around the androecium
(as opposed to the opposite, which is normal for angiosperms)? Was
this debunked?
Michael