After 32,000 Years, an Ice Age Flower is Born Again

32,000 years ago on the tundra of northeastern Siberia, a squirrel scampered across the frozen landscape. It buries some fruits that bore white flowers deep in the ground.

Now, in 2012, a team of Russian scientists have announced that they have unearthed the fruit and brought tissue from it back to life. 

So, after 32,00 years, the plant has been brought back from the dead. It may or may not be the beginning of Jurassic Park with plants.

Discover Magazine has more info:

The fruits are about 30,000 years older than the Israeli date palm seed that previously held the record as the oldest tissue to give life to healthy plants.
The researchers were studying ancient soil composition in an exposed Siberian riverbank in 1995 when they discovered the first of 70 fossilized Ice Age squirrel burrows, some of which stored up to 800,000 seeds and fruits. Permafrost had preserved tissue from one species—a narrow-leafed campion plant—exceptionally well, so researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences recently decided to culture the cells to see if they would grow. Team leader Svetlana Yashina re-created Siberian conditions in the lab and watched as the refrigerated tissue sprouted buds that developed into 36 flowering plants within weeks.
This summer Yashina’s team plans to revisit the tundra to search for even older burrows and seeds.