Whole, fertile plants of Silene stenophylla Ledeb.
(Caryophyllaceae) have been uniquely regenerated from maternal, immature fruit
tissue of Late Pleistocene age using in vitro tissue culture and clonal
micropropagation. The fruits were excavated in northeastern Siberia from fossil
squirrel burrows buried at a depth of 38 m in undisturbed and never thawed Late
Pleistocene permafrost sediments with a temperature of −7 °C.