Extinct Species of Date Palm grown from 2000 Year old Seed

[SWRancher]

I though this was a pretty interesting article about growing/bringing back an extinct species of date palm from a unbelievably still viable 2000 year old seed. 

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/judean-date-palm-methuselah?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

[simon_grow]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing!

Simon

[Zafra]

so cool! this is like the 1500 year old bean they found in a clay jar in a cave in New Mexico. nature is amazing.

[00christian00]

And here I am, failing to germinate few days old seeds. LOL

[dwfl]

Very cool

[edzone9]

That is awesome it was meant to be ! ..

Ed

[Daintree]

Very cool!  I have been following the tree for years. 
But I think the author of the Atlas Obscura article may not fully grasp date palm anatomy, since after noting that the tree is male, they state "It is predicted it will generate fruit by 2022."
I believe what they are planning to do at the Arava Institute is to cross a modern date palm with Methuselah and try to create a close approximation of an ancient date variety.
Still awesome!  And Kibbutz Ketura is still on my short list of places to see before I die!!!

Carolyn

[mangomike]

The author of the article is also incorrect in stating that this seedling is a subspecies. All subtaxa of Phoenix dactylifera have been reduced to synonymy. It is simply a seedling (although of very ancient provenance) of  P. dactylifera.

Actually, many "modern" date palm varieties such as Deglet Noor are very ancient, since they are propagated by offshoots similar to bananas.