Cold Hardy Plants? You ain't Seen Nothin'
"Ottawa: Plants entombed under ice in Canada's far north for centuries have come back to life after exposure to air and sunlight, Canadian researchers have found.
University of Alberta researcher Catherine La Farge collected what she believed to be dead mosses (or bryophytes) from the foot of a retreating glacier in Sverdrup Pass on Ellesmere Island.
Carbon dating determined the plants were 400-600 years old and had been entombed during the Little Ice Age that occurred between 1550 and 1850.
Ms La Farge was then able to revive the mosses in a lab, overturning a long-held assumption that plant remains exposed by retreating polar glaciers are all dead."
http://www.smh.com.au/world/400yearold- ... 2ncqh.html