Sunday, June 3, 2007

A Piece Of the Jurassic is On My Front Porch

On my front porch I now have an extremely rare tree that dates from the Jurassic! The oldest known fossil examples are 175 million years old. The Wollemi Pine was discovered in Australia in 1994. Less than 100 adult trees are known, and I'm doing my part to propagate them. How cool is that! There was concern that unscrupulous dirt bags would try to steal or cut down the rare trees in order to sell them on the black market. Someone had the ingenious idea to just make a bazillion babies and sell them all over the world, thereby reducing their rarity and making them a non-marketable item. The National Geographic Society has spearheaded the effort to sell these ancient babies, and that's how I got one. You can also get one from the Ancient Pine website. Yes, they're a little pricey, but it's the Jurassic, man! How cool is that! I can't help repeating myself! Here's my little guy on my Seattle porch, aeons away from its little fossil matey on the right.

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

That's super cool. I think I'll have to wait a while before getting one but I want one!! Woohoo!! Ancient plants unite!