Ribbon weed: largest plant in the world

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

The world’s largest plant has recently been discovered off the West Coast of Australia: a seagrass 180 km in length.
The plant is called the ribbon weed, or Posidonia australis.
The plant is 4,500 years old, is sterile, has double the number of chromosomes than other similar plants, and has managed to survive the volatile atmosphere of the shallow Shark Bay, Australia.
The ribbon weed covers an area of 20,000 hectares.
The second largest plant, is the clonal colony of a quaking Aspen tree in Utah, which covers 43.6 hectares.
The largest tree in India, the Great Banyan in Howrah’s Botanical Garden, covers 1.41 hectares.

How did it survive

Sometime in the Harappan era, a plant took root in Shark Bay. Then it kept spreading through its rhizomes.
The researchers found that the ribbon weed cannot spread its seeds, something that helps plants overcome environmental threats.
Also because it is a polyploid – instead of taking half-half genome from both parents, it took 100 percent, something not unheard of in plants.
Therefore, this ribbon weed has twice the number of chromosomes other plants of the same variety have.