Seed - Seed Records

Seed Records

• The oldest viable carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005. (A reported regeneration of Silene stenophylla (narrow-leafed campion) from material preserved for 31,800 years in the Siberian permafrost was achieved using fruit tissue, not seed.)

• The largest seed is produced by the coco de mer, or "double coconut palm", Lodoicea maldivica. The entire fruit may weigh up to 23 kilograms (50 pounds) and usually contains a single seed.

• The earliest fossil seeds are around 365 million years old from the Late Devonian of West Virginia. The seeds are preserved immature ovules of the plant Elkinsia polymorpha.