MEET THE WORLD'S OLDEST--AND HARDEST WORKING--PLANT
Mystery and questions still surround the box huckleberry (sweeter than the wild blueberry.
No one knows for sure how it got here. Since it doesn't reproduce sexually as most plants do, how did distant colonies form?
One theory is that the existing colonies are all that's left of a once more numerous glacial plant.
James C. Parks, a Millersville University biology professor is inclined to accept another theory. Though no viable seeds from box huckleberries have ever been found in the wild, fertile seeds have resulted from people manually transferring pollen from one plant to another colony.
Perhaps, once in a blue moon, a pollinated seed does make its way, perhaps by a bird, launching another colony.
Nor is there unanimity about how old huckleberry plants are. They have no rings to count, like trees. Carbon dating doesn't work. Estimates are based on how much the plant grows in a year.
We have a number of wild varieties of huckleberry - blueberries around here. I ate them often with cream and sugar in my youth.
I would be interested in knowing why radiocarbon dating doesn't work.
I would like to see what the C13 ratio was. Maybe also the N15 ratio.
My first guess is radiocarbon dating doesn't work well because what is being dated is too young, and post-atomic. That's enough to mess any radiocarbon date up.
Any more information?