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LiveScience
LiveScience
Richard Pallardy

World's loneliest tree species can't reproduce without a mate. So AI is looking for one hidden in the forests of South Africa.

A cyclad tree sits centre frame on a sunny day.

The world's loneliest tree may soon find a mate, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

Only a single, male specimen of the Wood's cycad (Encephalartos woodii) has ever been discovered in the wild. In 1895, botanist John Medley Wood found the solitary plant in what is now the Ngoye Forest Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

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