Eucalyptus will survive Doomsday
or the funny story of E. largiflorens becoming the Northernmost Eucalypt in the World
The Norwegian Government inaugurated yesterday the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the remote Spitsbergen Island in the Arctic Circle, receiving shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries.
Current deposits range from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato; but also include representatives of important trees used worldwide as sources of firewood, timber or raw fibre as Acacia, Pinus and Eucalyptus.
![Eucalyptus largiflorens at the Global Seed Vault, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway / Northernmost Cold Hardy Eucalyptus at 78ºN](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTmqAlqFK_IM0Pf1r47wrd2Qet-yBGlixjkZJ6e0zWuh73KCFFr4Gq3jNHpqk5K1WTaEpAegr5jBmoL4_gI63Uxmokv6yi1lV9fvf6mus65nx8h9ms-Hljht6JpeAoSAkSNf-pDupofY/s400/GITForestry_Eucalyptus_Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault_02.jpg)
This “fail-safe” facility, dug deep into the frozen rock of an Arctic mountain, will secure for centuries, or longer, the most comprehensive and diverse collection of hundreds of millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the world today.
![Eucalyptus largiflorens at the Global Seed Vault, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway / Northernmost Cold Hardy Eucalyptus at 78ºN](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66iE1za8Px3xahNRIzPl1ssuF2_q40_qhGgs216KUIx-RvmzevMkZMY7Su2anWo9ViWd-b6TQGQyO5QXOC-8Rn3SPoZpPlLi4zjMynQUFin2Rna2P2KhWnmjbcJzz8wZI2REwufJG608/s400/GITForestry_Eucalyptus_Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault_03.jpg)
![Eucalyptus largiflorens at the Global Seed Vault, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway / Northernmost Cold Hardy Eucalyptus at 78ºN](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpu1VVx-5K3dnoLIhmuZl6nj49w11F3kmgp1_Q4u7u1VUcDoNWTQMz5Zm9H_Mmz5gcA4femhZWfMOrCt7OBX7NCGsBD1FeAGSNwSbzaZH-HDKxS-xFy_2oq6fvDEupnghOQ54uPP9E_Mw/s400/GITForestry_Eucalyptus_largiflorens_Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault.jpg)
500 seeds of Eucalyptus largiflorens donated by the International Livestock Research Institute of Ethiopia travelled from Adis Ababa to Norway to become the Northernmost "Cold Hardy" Eucalyptus in the world (until we convince Sir Richard Branson to help us drop a seed packet near the North Pole!)
Even if just 1 of several hundred Eucalyptus taxa is represented by now at the Svalbard Global Seed Ark, these plants naturally prone to resurrection after surviving natural disasters, the ubiquitous Australian Gum Trees, are finally safe from Apocalypse in the permafrost of the Doomsday Vault.
Curious links
An intrepid plantsman photographs what is possibly the northernmost flowering Eucalyptus in the world not very far away from Spitsbergen. A blooming E. dalrympleana... in the fjords of Norway!
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© 2008 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, but we do not like rudeness.
5 Comments by our readers :::
"Eucalyptus will survive Doomsday"
this will be for sure a bad new for some simple minds.
Mind cultivation is one of the goals of this site, even if it requires cynicism sometimes :)
And as long as simple minds do not take Eucalyptus survivng as worse news than the Doomsday itself, there is still hope XD
Thanks for your comment!
Posted by Treeman on 2/27/2008, 11:13 am, in reply to "Northernmost "Cold Hardy" Eucalyptus: Norway, 78ºN"
I hope they include seeds from oranges, apples and pears! It would be a shame to lose those in a catastrophe! XD
Posted by Heather Milligan on 2/27/2008, 11:43 am, in reply to "Re: Northernmost "Cold Hardy" Eucalyptus: Norway, 78ºN"
Very clever Gus, spluttered my cup of tea everywhere when I saw the title Northernmost "Cold Hardy" Eucalyptus: Norway, 78ºN... grin
Posted by Gus on 2/27/2008, 12:23 pm, in reply to "Re: Northernmost "Cold Hardy" Eucalyptus: Norway, 78ºN"
:-D A funny post every now and then is mandatory :-D
That said, I won't be fully happy until someone grows a potted Eucalyptus indoors here! for a couple years and lets me talk about it!
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