The Loneliest Plant In The World

In 1895 botanist, John Medley Wood, saw an unusual tree. He sent a stem from it to London. It was originally placed in the palm house but was later moved to a bed along with other South African plants at Kew Gardens. 

Named E. woodii, in Dr. Wood's honor, it is a cycad. Cycads are a very old order of tree and it turns out this one, which is still there in London, may be the very last tree of its kind on our planet, the last one to grow up in the wild.

It has grown a male cone which produces pollen but has no female mate to produce seed. It appears that the days of this cycad, once so plentiful, are numbered.


Read more here.
Thanks to frequent NOTL contributor xoxoxo Bruce.

***UPDATE: Commenter Kathleen has pointed me to this Wikipedia article. You can dry your tears now! It appears that this plant is not as lonely as I thought but was merely pretending to be lonely in order to get sympathy.