Jurassic Plants Make A Comeback

Makarand writes "BBC News is reporting that saplings of the Wollemi Pine will go on sale by the end of 2005. This is the only plant survivor from the Jurassic age. After it was discovered in 1994 in a single Australian grove, the tree's home has been kept a top secret. Research to find the best way to grow the plants on a commercial scale has now paid off and the pines are set for a return. As they grow slowly and like low-light conditions they will be marketed as indoor plants." This looks like an interesting addition to any home, even if the article's title is a bit of a misnomer.

Comments

eh?

[wiggys]

This is the only plant survivor from the Jurassic age.

Eh? Surely ALL plants we see around us today are survivors from the Jurassic age. Sure, they are descendants, but so is the Wollemi Pine.

Re:eh?

[1u3hr]

This is the only plant survivor from the Jurassic age.

That line wasn't in the BBC article. It seems very unlikely. A cursory Google search turns up Jurassic Plants which says

Conifers (like Araucarioxylon) were the dominant land plant during the Jurassic period. Other land plants included Ginkgophytes (like Ginkgos), club mosses, horsetails, ferns, seed ferns, Sphenopsids (like Neocalamites), Filincophyta (like Matonidium), Cycadeodia (like Otozamites, Ptilophyllum, and Cycadeoidea), and cycadophytes.

Mesozoic Era conifers included redwoods, yews, pines, the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria), cypress, Pseudofrenelopsis (a Cheirolepidiacean).

Several of the trees listed are still around. No need to be over-dramatic. It's a plant that was thought extinct for millions of years; that's a distinction enough.

Re:eh?

[JJ]

New Zealand is perfectly awash in the flora of Jurassic age plant life. Ever hear of Gondwanaland? It was the southern continent that broke from Pangea. NZ is a remnant. NZ never got flowering plants (until man brought them in.) Also, the ginko was very common in the Jurassic age. My hometown has the Morton Arboretum, which cultivates ginkos.

Re:eh?

[SpinyNorman]

I think the intented assertion was unchanged survivor... it's identical to the fossilized examples, same as the Coelacanth can be considered a Jurassic survivor. One thing interesting about species like these is why they havn't evolved ... are they a genetic "dead-end of perfection", or is there something about their genetics and/or behavior that precludes viable adaptation?

It is not the only one (for now)

[arivanov]

There is another relict grove in Pitcunda on the Russian Black Sea coast. Due to something noone so far understands which happened over the last 600 or so years it no longer reproduces. The peninsula itself is slowly sinking into the sea after several earthquakes in the region in the 60-es.

So for now there is another grove and it is also listed as world heritage site by Unesco. Note the "for now" as you will not see any saplings from it. You are least likely to see the grove itself in a few hundred years either (it is awesome).

The only plant survivor?

[Max Romantschuk]

How do we know this is the only plant species to survive? What are the criteria? DNA mutates all the time, so how is this plant different?

Re:The only plant survivor?

[deek]

Take a look at this site:

http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au/information_about_plants/ wollemi_pine

It briefly explains how they came to the conclusion that this was a living fossil. Myself, I'm willing to take their word for it, because they've been in the field _much_ longer than I have :).

Re:The only plant survivor?

[axolotl_farmer]

What is remarkable about this tree is not its age, but that it is a recently discovered species only known from a few specimens. This species could not be placed within any of the described groups within Auracariacacae, so it has been placed in a new genus, Wollemia.

The Auracariacae are a group of conifers, just like pine trees and spruces. The best known is the monkey puzzle tree grown in temperate regions all over the world.Conifers are hard to clone, i.e. it's difficult to make the cuttings grow a root system.

There is an untapped geek factor in plants. Here's a chance to own a clone of a very rare species of a strange tree. As a biologist, it sound pretty cool to me!

Re:The only plant survivor?

[jdreed1024]

Want to see a creature who's roots date back to the beginning of life on Earth?

Want to see a creature whose roots date back to the beginning of life on earth, but whose physical appearane has changed very little in that time? Go to a beach and find a horseshoe crab. They've been around for millions of years, and looked pretty much the way they do now. They've also got blue blood, which any true geek would find interesting.

Re:Sounds cool, but..

[thefirelane]

Bonsai is a technique not a species. Literally in Japanese, it means "tree in pot". You can take any number of species of tree, and "bonsai" them. This involves restricting the roots, reducing the leaf size, and pruning it in such a manor that the small tree appears like a miniature version of the larger tree (as opposed to just a young tree).

So you could actually get one of these trees, and turn it into a "bonsai tree" (which is what I considered doing when I read the article)


---Lane

Well adapted...

[hughk]

First, this has been around for a while and a sapling is on display at the Sydney Botanical Gardens. Yes, the announcement is pure PR for the company developing the technqiues, but the plant did cause a stir when it was first discovered. It was literally a living fossil, as that was how it was first seen.

Everything mutates, but the fittest survives. If the fittest is already well adapted then any mutation must be radical to offer an improvment - or conditions need to change so that the plant/creature is no longer competitive in its ecological niche.

However it isn't necessarily unique. We have also seen the same over shorter periods of time for animals. Think of the coelacanth, for example.

Re:Jurassic? Australia?

[1u3hr]

Doesn't this debunk the theory that Australia is a moon that fell from the sky and became a continent? Or did I misunderstand something?

I think you misunderstood that you were supposed to use the glue on your shoes, not smoke it.

Australia has some of the most ancient exposed rocks known, 4.3 billion years.

Re:I think this is a bit hyped.

[MrOrn]

...but this Australian plant doesn't seem to be all that big either.

Well, I'd call almost 40 m big. Certainly bigger than moss. :-)

From the Royal Botanical Gardens site: Tallest tree is 38.5 m

Other living fossil plants

[mattr]

This was really interesting so I googled. Cavet: IANA Paleobotanist.

Apparently ginkos are also extremely old and resemeble a Jurassic variety. And Cycads, which are woody plants that create seeds. They also seem to be quite poisonous although they are eaten as "beach tucker" after processing in the jungle. (link) Anyway here are some links.

Finally I there are also the extremely visually (and biochemically?) wierd Gymnopsperms like Welwitschia And Ephedra, which seem ancient, maybe same era..

All this because I was trying to figure out if the inch-long stem/leaf in my pocket which I snapped off a huge pencil plant was one of those. Not sure yet.. I remember my mother also has some kind of ancient plant which looks like a gray rock and does nothing, but then one day suddenly splits in half, and then each half will continue to split in the same way recursively. A very cool plant if anyone can figure out what it is!

I've seen one of those pine trees up close.

[bertok]

I saw a few saplings over a year ago. They were being grown next to the ranger's office at a nearby national park, but all of them were surrounded by wire fences for protection. They look a lot like pine trees, but the needles are shorter and fatter, and the trunk and branches are covered in what looks more like densely packed and dried out needles than 'real' bark.

It is obvious even to a lay person like myself that it is a simpler, more primitive plant than modern trees.

No such thing as genetic perfection

[Mars Ultor]

a genetic "dead-end of perfection"

This is really a misleading term. There exists no such thing as genetic perfection, just as evolution on this planet will never lead to the creation of an "uber-species". An organism simply adapts to its particular environment, or fails to and dies out. Thus a shark, which is a supreme predator in the ocean, will not fare too long when placed in the Sahara. The same holds true for just about every other species - perfection is only achieved relative to a particular environment. That grove in Australia simply exerted no new selection pressure on the Wollemi tree. An exception to this rule might be made for H. sapien sapien, but one could argue we're operating outside of natural selection now (a whole new thread in itself).

Humans do evolve!

[Doug Merritt]

There exists no such thing as genetic perfection ...An organism simply adapts to its particular environment, or fails to and dies out.

Very true, and widely unappreciated.

An exception to this rule might be made for H. sapien sapien, but one could argue we're operating outside of natural selection now

Alas, a popular thought, but quite uncontroversially false, even though it has been suggested (largely for the sake of Dramatic Pronouncement) by a few scientists who really should know better. (The below comments are aimed at this wrong notion; don't take it personally.)

ALL that is required for natural selection is heritable characteristics (DNA) that have at least a little random mutation, and reproduction rates modulated by external forces (variable death and offspring rates).

That's why it is so easy to simulate genetic algorithms. Given only a few obvious, easy criteria, anything can and will evolve to better fit an ecological niche (or to maintain homeostasis in that niche if it is already at a local optimum).

Thus, to turn off evolution for humans, you'd have to eliminate one or more of those easy characteristics...yet humans still die for environmental reasons, our DNA still mutates, we reproduce at different rates for external reasons (we geeks should be keenly aware of the female choosing or avoiding mates ;-)

Therefore obviously Homo Sapiens still evolves. It is an extremely lame, incoherent, not well thought out argument to say that modern medicine saves many who would otherwise die without reproducing and therefore there is no longer evolution. Ha! It would take a lot more than that.

To paint it even more clearly, things like medicine and nutrition and technology merely change the definition of the local optimum and/or of the ecological niche...but there still exists an ecological niche for humans.

Come on, if someone is so ugly that they couldn't get laid carrying a bunch of bananas into a monkey whorehouse, then their differential reproduction rate is going to be lower than other members of the species, all other things being equal. This is just common sense.

This notion that humans are above even evolution is just another conceit, right up there with Earth being the center of the universe and man being created in the image of God. You wish. ;-)