There are more than 200,000 species of plant life on planet earth, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The history of land plants is 420 million years old, and no one can say how many species have lived and died off over the years. While many of these species are gone for good, there is hope that we can bring at least some of these plants back to life. In 2008, scientists in Israel did exactly that. They found 2,000-year-old seeds from a species of date tree that had become extinct. After planting the seeds, amazingly, one of them grew.
Death Of An Ancient Tree
The oldest tree in the world died one day in 1964. Its name was Prometheus, and Donald Currey cut it down. It was not only the oldest tree, but the oldest living thing ever recorded. Currey wasn’t an un-caring logger or farmer making room for crops. He was a 30-year-old graduate student doing research into climate change throughout history.