Scientists are planning on cloning Lady Liberty.
Lady Liberty, the standing symbol of Florida, will be granted a special privilege by the authorities. The cypress tree, known as Lady Liberty will have an unexpected heritor after the authorities decided to clone the 2000-year-old tree.
As a measure to preserve Florida’s landmark, the authorities from Stanford, Florida, came in on Monday to collect samples from Lady Liberty, in order to duplicate its genome. The tree is situated in the Big Tree Park, in Seminole County.
More on the historical side, Lady Liberty is the Senator’s sister. The Senator was considered to be the oldest bald cypress on the North American territory. Unfortunately, Lady Liberty’s big brother met his demise back in 2012, when an arsonist burnt down the historical tree.
According to a couple of analysis performed on the Senator, it would seem that the bald cypress tree had more than 3500 years. Furthermore, at the time of the arson, the Senator did not impress the public only by its age, but by also by its dimensions.
The Senator had 38 meters in height, and its massive tree trunk had more than 5 meters in diameter. After the initial investigation, authorities determined that the tree burned down after it was struck by lightning.
However, further investigations have revealed that Mother Nature had nothing to do with the Senator’s demise. Actually, the fire was started intentionally by a 26-year old woman by the name of Sara Barnes.
After the harrowing arson, most people thought that the Senator was altogether lost. Still, some of them sighted a couple of saplings growing from the Senator’s fire-twisted bark.
In early October 2013, the officials from Seminole County granted a couple of wood artists the privilege of collected several charred remains from the Senator in order to transform them into ornaments.
As for the Senator’s sister, Lady Liberty will have an unexpected heritor. Moreover the local authorities have move ahead of schedule in order to clone the tree. Lady Liberty is only 12 meters away from the Senator’s remain.
Being from the same species as the burned down tree, Lady Liberty exhibits the same physical characterists as her bygone brother. The tree is 82 feet tall and has 394 inches in diameter. As stated, the Senator’s younger sister is 2000 years old.
If all goes as planned, it may very well be that the iconic Florida tree will not be spending its remaining years in solitude. The authorities are doing everything they can in order to preserve the cypress tree which has come to a true American symbol.
Photo credits:www.wikimedia.org
