{"id":1400,"date":"2026-07-03T21:33:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?page_id=1400"},"modified":"2026-07-03T21:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:40:49","slug":"the-triumph-of-seeds","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?page_id=1400","title":{"rendered":"The Triumph of Seeds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We discussed The Triumph of Seeds<\/em> by Thor Hanson on November 4th. I think everyone appreciated Hanson’s writing style although the group was divided about his weaving stories of his son into the book. We began with an interview with Hanson at the following link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s no denying that seeds are fascinating and an integral part of life. With his easy-going, story-telling style and division of the book into sections on Seeds Nourish, Seeds Unite, Seeds Endure, Seeds Defend, and Seeds Travel, Hanson covers a lot of territory, all of it soundly based in scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own favorite part (apart from all the book, of course) is Seeds Endure. This section covered Methuselah. Probably not surprisingly, many old plants get called Methuselah but this particular Methuselah is a date palm sprouted from a seed recovered from an archaeological excavation at the ancient fortress of Masada. A number of these seeds were recovered and dated to sometime between 155 BC and 64 CE. Several were planted in 2005 and “our” Methuselah sprouted! Turns out he is a he and efforts are underway to find a female date palm with similar enough genetics to produce a date close to, or maybe even just like, the dates he would have sired 2000 years ago. By the way, those dates are extinct so it really would be an amazing thing to be able to eat dates from the days of the Roman Empire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following are several links about him:
https:\/\/timeline.com\/methuselah-judean-date-palm-b3782ff1d731<\/a>
https:\/\/www.greenprophet.com\/2012\/03\/2000-year-old-date-pit-sprouts-in-israel\/<\/a>
https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/tree-grown-2000-year-old-seed-has-reproduced-180954746\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the record, since that time, additional date seeds of similar age<\/a> have been germinated and Methuselah has successfully pollinated Hannah. The world can eat Judean dates again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An even older plant – 32,000 years old – exists as well. This one is from a seed cache of Silene stenophylla<\/em>, a campion that is native to Siberia and the arctic tundra. The seeds had been damaged but enough genetic material remained that the plants were cultured and have now produced their own seed. This particular find is of scientific interest because the seeds were buried under the permafrost; scientists are hopeful that they can learn more about how to store seeds in seed vaults today. This link<\/a> has a great photograph of the plant with flowers! (When I put in the link in 2019, the image was freely available; now, in 2026 it seems to be behind a paywall but might be available elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for seed vaults, we touched briefly on those. I won’t write more here but I’ll attach a couple links on the topic.
https:\/\/www.rbth.com\/blogs\/2014\/05\/12\/the_men_who_starved_to_death_to_save_the_worlds_seeds_35135<\/a>
https:\/\/www.agprofessional.com\/article\/update-worlds-15-largest-seed-banks<\/a>
https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/world\/2015\/10\/22\/norway-doomsday-backstory-arwa.cnn<\/a>
https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2015\/09\/rescuing-ancient-seeds-from-a-war-torn-city\/406978\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I mentioned in passing, but couldn’t remember the details, is a grant to study plant evolution in the face of climate change. The evolution being studied doesn’t approach 32,000 or even 2,000 years but is exciting work to improve our understanding of how plants adapt to the conditions in which they must survive. The project is commonly known as the resurrection experiment<\/a>. It is also discussed here.<\/a> You can learn more about Project Baseline here<\/a>, even how to access the seeds in their collection for scientific projects.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We discussed The Triumph of Seeds by Thor Hanson on November 4th. I think everyone appreciated Hanson’s writing style although the group was divided about his weaving stories of his son into the book. We began with an interview with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":835,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1400","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1400\/revisions\/1405"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}