Monday, September 28, 2015

Pando

The Pando quaking aspen colony is the heaviest known living organism on earth. Appearing above ground as individual trees, they bear identical genes and gender (male), revealing a single shared root system which is estimated at six million kilograms, and buried so deep it is protected from threats such as wildfires. It has re-risen like a phoenix and likely a great many times, for the Pando also rivals the oldest living organisms on earth. It is roughly 80,000 years old.

It has thought to have not flowered (reproduced sexually) in the last 10,000 years or so but survived strictly by cloning. That’s quite a dry spell. I suddenly don’t feel so bad.



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