Shark Bay, Australia, should perhaps consider a name change to Seagrass Bay, since the largest resident isn’t a great white predator, but a single seagrass meadow. After discovering that the whole bay’s worth of seagrass spread from one seed and was all part of the same plant, it instantly became the world’s largest plant—as large as 20,000 football fields. At 77 square miles, it’s three-times the size of Manhattan, and could be 4,500 years old to boot.

Jane Edgeloe and colleagues took samples from several stalks from across Shark Bay. They wanted to find out how many individual plants made up the rich meadow, which spreads 110 miles throughout the giant inlet. Edelgoe said, “The answer blew us away—there was just one! That’s it, just one plant has expanded over 112 miles in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on Earth.”

Another of the researchers said, “It appears to be really resilient, experiencing a wide range of temperatures and salinities plus extreme high light conditions, which together would typically be highly stressful for most plants.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Compare this to the Kingdom of God (Matt. 13:31-32) and the church (Acts 2:41). Both had very small beginnings but have grown into huge living resilient organisms (1 Cor. 12:12-27).