The loneliest and "virgin" tree in the world, waiting for its bride

LONDON: A seemingly insignificant tree is planted in a corner of Britain's famous Royal Botanical Gardens, also known as the Queue Gardens, but its story is more depressing than that of a miserable man.

This tree, belonging to the Encephalartos woodii, a species of palm tree, is the only and last plant of its kind left in the world, having been present in cue gardens for the last hundred years.

In high-breed plants, male and female plants are different, and the palm tree is a kind of "male tree" that needs a "female tree" of its own kind to propagate properly. The search for which has been going on for the last 100 years, but so far experts have not been able to find any success.

Discovered in 1895 by British botanist John Medleywood from a mountainous area in the Zooland region of South Africa. Due to its strange trunk and canopy-like spread of an umbrella, this tree looked the most unique. John Medley cut off a part of the tree's trunk and sent it to Britain, which was planted as a pen in the Cue Garden, which soon turned into a tenacious tree.

Experts revealed that it is a "male tree" that is in dire need of "original female" in order to reproduce. Over the past 125 years, trees planted in South Africa have also been affected by the weather, leaving only one specimen.

Fortunately, unlike humans, some plants and trees have a natural age of hundreds and thousands of years. This palm tree is one of them. Although so far the "children" of this tree have been made using different techniques, they are very different from the real tree. For "real children" it is necessary to have a female tree of the same type near the male tree. Which has not yet been found.

That is, until the "bride" of this tree is found, it will remain the only plant in the world.