The world’s largest plant has been revealed, but it’s not a super-sized tree or necessarily what you’d expect. Scientists in Australia have located a plant off the country’s western coast that they believe is the biggest to be ever be discovered. It’s a massive seagrass meadow that grew to a gigantic size in part because it is asexual and expands through the process of cloning.
The scientists published their findings today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. According to the Associated Press, a genetic analysis of the underwater seagrass meadow has confirmed that it is, in fact, one single organism that covers an area of more than 70 square miles. That’s bigger than the state of Washington.