Seeds from 30,000-Year-Old Squirrel Cache Flower Again

Inkfish
By Elizabeth Preston
Feb 22, 2012 3:55 AMNov 5, 2019 12:24 AM

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Confession: As a nerdlet of nine or ten, I decided to help flowers get fertilized. I loved seeing the glossy seeds hidden inside the fat green ovaries of dead flowers when I split them open with my thumbnail. I must have watched one of those nature specials where the scientists climb up to the top of the Alps and dust pollen onto endangered flowers with a paintbrush, because I started going around roadside fields with cotton balls and gathering pollen. Partway through my project I realized that these particular plants were doing fine without human intervention, and abandoned them.

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