When the shuttle Discover launched on Monday the STS-131 crew was accompanied by willow seeds from a University of New Brunswick experiment. The idea behind the experiment is to observe the effects microgravity have on the density of cell growth and lead to some breakthroughs for the forest industry. This is the second batch of Canadian seeds in the project called Cambium to fly into space in recent months.
A search of the Seed Snatcher search engine reveals this isn't the first time seeds have gone into space for research purposes. In 2002 experiments were conducted with flax seeds to understand how plants know up from down.
In 1983 Park Seed Company partnered with NASA and has provided millions of school children around the world with seeds that had been taken to space and brought back to Earth to conduct experiments with. You can read more about their partnership here.
Seeds, boldly going where few gardeners have gone before.