Giant hogweed aka giant cow parsley (Heracleum mantegazzianum)

Giant hogweed, a species native to the Caucausus and Central Asia, was introduced in Britain in the 19th century as an ornamental. It has spread subsequently to Continental Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Giant hogweed can grow to a height of 23 feet (7 m.). It is invasive and its sap is highly toxic producing phytophotodermatitis, a chemical reaction causing skin cells to become hypersensitive to ultraviolet light, resulting in blisters, long-lasting scarring, and even blindness.

Giant hogweed has been found to date in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Vermont.

I find the Sussman photograph of Box Huckleberry disappointing. It was made in the wrong season to show the plant at best advantage.

Rachel Sussman has spent five years on a personal project photographing living organisms more than 2000 years old.

Sussman photos

14:09 video

Her list surprised me by containing a representative from my home state of Pennsylvania, the Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera. It is a surviving relic of the Ice Age, like the brook trout, and something on the order of 100 colonies have been identified in seven mostly Appalachian states, running from from Pennsylvania to Tennessee.

Wikipedia article

The community at Losh Run, Perry County, Pennsylvania, near the Juniata River, has been estimated to be as much as 13,000 years old, making it the oldest living organism in the United States, second oldest in the world. Only King’s Lomatia, Lomatia tasmanica, a bizarre archaic angiosperm found in 1937 in southwest Tasmania is older. But you don’t get delicious edible berries from a Tasmanian angiosperm.

Perry County, PA site article

Lancaster News article from 1999

Duke article on North Carolina colony

Hat tip to Zoe Pollock.

Israeli scientists have been able to germinate a seed found at Masada, carbon-dated to be 2000 years old, thus dating from the period when Masada was one of King Herod’s vacation homes.

The resulting tree is a specimen of the Judean date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, commonly mentioned in the Bible, and prized in Antiquity as a source of food and shade, as well as for its beauty and medicinal qualities, is thought to have become extinct around 500 A.D.

The tree’s sex is as yet unknown, and cannot be determined until the tree is mature. It is hoped that another seed of the opposite sex can also be germinated, and the species revived.

The oldest seed previously germinsted was a 1300 year old Chinese lotus.

Haaretz.com

LA Times

The palm is now 5’ tall