I have read that the world’s largest animal is a blue whale, and the largest living organism is a fungus (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/). But what is the largest plant?
Whatever it was before, we have a new winner. Scientists have determined a 110-mile-long meadow of seagrass in Shark Bay, Western Australia is actually a single plant. It has spent an estimated 4,500 years cloning itself to cover an area three times the size of Manhattan island.
The findings, recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, make the colony of Posidonia australis, or ribbon weed, the largest known plant on Earth.
How long will it continue to thrive? Like other ocean organisms, seagrass is susceptible to climate change. A severe heat wave in 2010 and 2011 caused widespread damage in Shark Bay, killing about a third of the seagrasses. But for now, this meadow of a single plant is the undisputed champion.
For more information, see “Scientists Find World’s Largest Plant In Australia” by Nick Visser (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worlds-largest-plant_n_629707bde4b090b53b7ed338?).