Arctic Lupine, Lupinus arcticus

Amazing Story!

In 1967 Canadian Museum of Nature staff proved that 10,000 year-old seeds of Lupinus arcticus could germinate and produce normal, healthy plants! An incredible series of events led to this discovery, starting in 1954, when Mr. Harold Schmidt, a Yukon mining engineer, discovered rodent burrows three to six metres below the surface of the frozen silt common to the area near Miller Creek. Within the well-preserved tunnels he found remnants of a nest, dung, a skull, a skeleton and about 20 seeds. He told a number of local people about his find, and put the seeds in a dry place.

There they stayed for twelve years, until Museum paleontologist Dick Harington heard about them while doing fieldwork in the area. He brought the tunnel contents back to Ottawa, where he showed the seeds (many of which seemed perfectly preserved) to botanists Erling Porsild of the Museum and Gerry Mulligan of the Department of Agriculture.

Dick Harington examined a lot of evidence and inferred that the rodent burrows and their contents were probably about 10,000 years old. Other research on the contents of the burrows revealed that the rodents were collared lemmings, Dicrostonyx groenlandicus. This discovery led to another question: since lemming burrows would normally be poorly ventilated, leading to damp and mold, how could seeds remain preserved in such a tunnel for 10,000 years? Dick and his colleagues thought that perhaps a catastrophic event, like a landslide or even a volcano, had sealed the tunnels in spring or early summer before the ground thawed, leaving the contents frozen and dry for 10 millennia!

This is the skull found by Harold Schmidt in 1954

The two botanists decided to see whether the seeds were still viable (able to grow into plants). The best-preserved seeds were put on wet filter paper and within 48 hours, they germinated! Six young plants were eventually transferred to pots, and all of them grew into healthy Lupinus arcticus specimens.

The germination experiment was as exciting for the botanists as it was for paleontologists, because no one had ever germinated seeds that old before, or even close. The previous record was for seeds of the sacred lotus (Nelumbium nuciferum) that were a paltry 2,000 years old.