Scientists discover the world's BIGGEST plant off Australia

The plant is roughly threes times the size of the city of Manhattan!

Sea scientists have discovered what they believe to be the world's biggest plant!

The mega plant is a seagrass roughly three times the size of the city of Manhattan.

It was located underwater off the west coast of Australia and researchers say it would have taken more than four thousand years to grow from just a single seed.

So how was the epic discovery made? Well it was by accident! The team behind the find had originally set out to study the genetic diversity of what they thought was a seagrass meadow about eight hundred kilometres north of the city of Perth.

They collected shoots from the seagrass with the aim of finding out just how many plants made up the meadow.

However, they were left shocked when DNA results revealed the truth.

The plant can be found in Shark Bay in Western Australia

"The answer blew us away - there was just one!" said Jane Edgeloe who is the lead author on the study.

"That's it, just one plant has expanded over 180km in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on Earth."

Researchers say the species, which is also known as ribbon weed, is truly remarkable as it has managed to grow in locations across the bay with very lots of different conditions.

"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," said Dr Elizabeth Sinclair, one of the researchers.