Seeds have a history
Today’s tale is a shout out to spring and what’s behind those green shoots and budding flowers, which at one time or another began with a seed. When we did some digging around, we found some dazzling “dirt” about how long seeds can do nothing before doing something.
We’ll start with forgotten Persian silk tree seeds from China housed in the botany section of London’s British Museum in 1793. After the museum was bombed in 1940, when workers plowed through the rubble, they discovered green sprouts—baby silk trees from seeds that were nearly 150 years old.
In the 1960s, archaeologists exploring one of Argentina’s ancient tombs discovered a child’s rattle made from a walnut shell with canna lily seeds banging around inside. The seeds were planted, a lily actually grew, and more surprisingly, carbon dating verified the seeds were 600 years old.
Is that a record? Not quite. A date palm named Methuselah has that honor. It was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old seed found in the excavations of Masada, a complex of palaces built by Herod the Great, which was raided by the Romans in A.D. 72-73.
We’ll let you ponder along with scientists, who have yet to determine what seeds do when they’re doing nothing, and wish you a springtime that blooms with seeds of success.