The entire Hawaiian public of the peat moss Sphagnum palustre appears to be a clone that has been in existence for some 50,000 years researchers have discovered. The study is published in New Phytologist. Among the most long-lived of organisms, every plant of the Hawaiian body politic appears to have been produced by vegetative rather than sexual propagation and can be traced back to a single parent. Surprisingly, the genetic diversity of the Hawaiian clone is analogous to that detected in populations of S. palustre that do propagate venereal disease and occur across vaster regions...

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