Researchers Discovered The Largest Plant In The World
The seagrass Posidonia australis
According to researchers from The University of Western Australia and Flinders University, the world's largest plant has been discovered. The news release stated that the plant is an ancient and extraordinarily robust seagrass which stretches 111.847 miles and is at about 4,500 years old.
Since researchers were seeking to figure out about the plants that should be collected for seagrass restoration, they came across the plant in Shark Bay, Western Australia.
Elizabeth Sinclair with the UWA Oceans Institute, a senior author of the study and a professor in UWA's School of Biological Sciences said that they were frequently asked how many distinct plants thrive in seagrass meadows, so they employed genetic methods to find out.
The researchers took samples of seagrass sprouts from all over Shark Bay and discovered that they all stemmed from the same plant. The shocking fact revealed was only one plant has spread over 180 kilometres (111 miles) in Shark Bay, making it the world's largest plant. According to them, the underwater meadow seemed to have grown from a single seedling.
According to Sinclair, the plant is unique in that it is a polyploid, which means the seedling has 100 percent of each parent's genome rather than the usual 50 percent. She went on to say that it looks to be extremely tough, even without effective flowering and seed generation, having been exposed to a wide variety of temperatures and salinities, as well as severe high light circumstances, all of which would be extremely stressful for most plants.
Furthermore, the researchers are currently doing studies in Shark Bay to see how this plant survives and thrives in such a changing environment.