Wednesday, December 30, 2015

2000-Year-Old Tree In Florida To Be Cloned

treeYou know that the future has arrived when they want to clone trees. Lady Liberty is a 2000-year-old bald cypress tree located in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida. It’s been alive longer than any one reading this. Now a nonprofit organization has collected a sample of this 89-foot tall tree for cloning.
The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is working towards creating living genetic libraries by cloning landmark trees through horticultural propagation. The idea is to save them should they die off. Interestingly, Lady Liberty is located in the same Seminole County park where another landmark tree once existed, called The Senator.

It is believed that the Senator was about 3,500 years old, but it burned down in 2012. After the demise of The Senator, forest activists started to pay greater attention to Lady Liberty’s health. They think it will die in the next five years, so they want to clone it.
It has a 10 foot diameter and a 32-foot circumference. It is also among the largest and oldest trees that exist in the world today. So this may very well be a worthy endeavor. The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive has collected a sample from the tree, its goal is to create living genetic libraries by cloning trees, hoping that the effort will help with research and reforestation in the future. Let’s hope it is not necessary.
Source Ubergizmo

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