Do plants die of old age and how long is the longest living plant?

3 Comments

1. falcon8765 says:

   August 30, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   Some plants have a set lifespan, like annuals which die after one year. Others are perennials which can live for either several years or indefinitely.

   Some trees are thousands of years old.
2. Lizzy says:

   August 30, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   Most plants have normal lifespans. They grow, age and die within a certain time frame.

   A single male Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) tree (nicknamed Pando) located in the U.S. state of Utah is estimated to be over 80,000 years old but some think it could be over a million years. Although it is called a clonal colony, it is not a group of separate plants but a single living entity with one massive underground root system.

   The plant is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000 tonnes (6,615 U.S. tons), making it the heaviest known organism
   .
3. linlyons says:

   August 30, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   yes they do.
   i think Redwoods, at a couple thousand years are long lived.
   bristle cone pine lives even longer.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinus_longaeva

   <<A specimen of this species nicknamed "Methuselah" located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of the White Mountains near Bishop, California is 4,700 years old, as measured by annual ring count on a small core taken with an increment borer. Its exact location is kept secret, since an older specimen, nicknamed "Prometheus", was cut down in 1964.>>

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_tree

   http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080414-oldest-tree.html

   <<Oldest Living Tree Found in Sweden …. The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) "Christmas tree" isn’t ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years>>

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms