David Cooke from the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London, England tells the faciniating story of the lonliest bachelor in the plant kingdom, the last remaining Encephalartos Woodii.
“Tucked away in a corner of London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, there is a very peculiar plant. At first glance, it resembles a stumpy palm tree, but this ancient specimen is incredibly rare. It is, in fact, the very last of its kind on Earth. Encephalartos Woodii is a cycad, a type of plant that once dominated the planet during the Jurassic Period. Over the millennia, the age of the cycad came to an end. And in the case of Encephalartos Woodii, we may have been left with only one—a single male specimen.”
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