Here are some famously old plants.

[timmy]

 

 

The huge "Sunland Baobab" tree at Sunland Farm in Limpopo, South Africa, is the country's oldest baobab tree. Carbon-dating suggested the ancient specimen is about 1,100 years old. The trunk of the tree is so wide it takes 40 adults with outstretched arms to encircle it. More than 7,000 visitors from all over the world come to see the majestic Baobab each year and have a drink in its hollowed-out trunk bar, which has 13-foot-high ceilings and comfortably seats up to 15 people.

[timmy]

The title for largest and heaviest single organism belongs to "Humongous Fungus" in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. This honey mushroom has spread over three square miles and scientists estimate it could weigh anywhere from 7,500 to 35,000 tons. Mostly, the fungus is found as a white latex-like layer that grows underneath tree bark, but it also sends out black fibers underground and produces honey yellow mushrooms in spring. DNA samples taken from all over the forest show this fungus to be a single organism, spreading two to three feet a year, placing it at 20,000 - 80,000 years old.

[timmy]

The "Olive tree of Vouves" is an olive tree in the village of Ano Vouves on the Greek island of Crete. One of the oldest olive trees in the world, it still produces olives today. While tree ring analysis demonstrated the plant to be at least 2000 years old, some researches at the University of Crete believe it is closer to 4,000 years old. In 1997, the tree was declared a protected natural monument and a museum has been built nearby for visitors.

[timmy]

Located within the Grove of Titans in Redwoods State Park, California is a mighty Coastal Redwood that reaches 320ft in height. While it is one single organism, "Lost Monarch" has multiple trunks that have grown into one that allows it its extra height. Its exact location has not been revealed to the public out of concern that excessive human foot traffic may upset the ecosystem or lead to vandalism. Interesting side note: I actually stumbled across this tree on vacation and had no idea it was THAT tree until much later.

[timmy]

"The Rose of Hildesheim" is a wild dog rose growing 35ft high against the eastern apse of the Hildesheim Cathedral. Documentation, including poems written of its beauty, verifies its age at approximately 700 years. The German Cathedral was destroyed by Allied bombers in 1945 during WWII, but the roots of the rose bush survived and it blossomed again among the ruins. According to legend, while the rose bush flourishes, Hildesheim will prosper.

[timmy]

The confirmed age of this Žametovka vine is over 400 years, which makes it the oldest noble vine in the world still bearing grapes. Planted in the Middle Ages along a city wall, "The Old Vine" survived the Ottoman invasion and WWII, both of which saw the building behind it destroyed. This single vine produces enough grapes for only 100 8.5oz bottles per year, which are designed by a renowned glass artist. Old Vine Festival is a ten day food & wine celebration that begins with the pruning of the vine and ends with a drink of the year's first wine on St Martin's Day.

[timmy]

"Tāne Mahuta" is a giant kauri tree located in the Waipoua Forest of New Zealand. Estimated at 1,250 - 2,500 years old, it is the oldest kauri tree in the world and the most famous tree in New Zealand. The legend is as follows: In the beginning before the world was light, the sky-father and the earth-mother were bound together, their offspring trapped in the darkness between them. Their sons became desperate for light and space, they agreed to separate from their parents. Tāne Mahuta, the strongest among them, used his powerful legs to thrust his parents away from each other until the sky-father was forced far away up into the sky, and Tāne held him there, letting the light shine in. New life began to burst forth around his feet, allowing him to clothe his mother in vegetation. The birds and small trees of the forest are his children.

[timmy]

At around 80,000 years old, Pando is one of the oldest, largest, and heaviest known single organisms on the planet. It is a clonal colony of a single male quaking aspen tree - genetically identical and sharing one root system. The entire photo above is only part of this single organism with over 40,000 trunks and weighing approximately 6,000 tons. Unfortunately, research is showing that this unique forest in Utah is currently dying and the US Forest Service has been experimenting with five acre swaths to attempt to save it.

[timmy]

"Putrella" is the Amorphophallus titanum (remember Latin?) at Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton. It's nature's tallest flowering plant, reaching over 10ft tall when in bloom. It's also called a corpse flower, emitting a putrid smell to attract pollinators such as carrion beetles. Due to its enormous size, a massive amount of time and energy is needed for a corpse flower to bloom. Because of this, it goes through years of growth and dormancy stages. When the plant has finally stored enough energy, it sends out a bud. Within approximately six weeks, the bud has turned into an enormous bloom that will last for only two to four days. Amazingly, "Putrella" is about to bloom again after only two years.

[timmy]

"King Clone" is an 11,700 year old creosote bush in the Mojave Desert. It is a clonal colony, a single organism, that reaches about 67ft x 45ft. As the creosote bush grows older, its oldest branches eventually die and its crown splits into separate crowns. This normally happens when the plant is 30 to 90 years old. Eventually, the old crown dies and the new one becomes a clonal colony from the previous plant, composed of many separate stem crowns all from the same seed.

[timmy]

The above photo is not rotated, the tree literally grows from an eroded ravine. The Dendroseris Neriifolia is native to Chile, but the only wild specimen on the planet is unnamed and found on Robinson Crusoe Island. The island rose from the ocean about four million years ago and contains many unique species of flora and fauna. Scientists have repeatedly planted saplings but exotic animals brought to the island by humans have destroyed all attempts so far.

[timmy]

"El Árbol del Tule" is located on the church grounds in the town center of Santa María del Tule, Mexico. With a trunk circumference of 138ft, the Montezuma cypress is estimated to be 1,400 - 1,600 years old. The tree attracts over 300,000 tourists each year and local schoolchildren give tourists a tour of the tree and point out shapes of creatures on the trunk, including jaguars and elephants. It has been reported that nearby traffic and dehydration were slowly killing the tree, but no real change has been seen in the last 30 years and locals are hopeful that the tree will last another 1,500 years.

[timmy]

The Snowdonia Hawkweed gets mention here because it's kinda famous and I felt there were too many trees. Though it is not a single plant the in the same way the others are, it might as well be. This simple yellow flower grows in only seven small patches on a mountain slope near Bethesda in the north of Wales - the same mountain slope on which it was first discovered in 1880 and on which it was last seen in 1953. Nowhere else will you find it. Rediscovered only 15 years ago after repeated searches for it, the Snowdonia Hawkweed is no longer considered extinct and botanists at the National Botanic Garden of Wales are currently cultivating them in-house to save and study the species.

[timmy]

The tallest known living tree is "Hyperion", located in North California. It tops out at 380ft and will likely not grow any taller due to woodpecker damage. Roughly 750 years old, it's difficult to understand how something so large and towering over everything around it was only discovered in 2006. In truth, "Hyperion" is probably not the tallest tree anymore, others are being discovered all the time. But their locations are not revealed to the public, not even to most park rangers.

[timmy]

This Norway Spruce named "Old Tjikko" has stood sentinel over Fulufjället Mountain, Sweden for over 9,550 years. It is a clonal tree that has survived for so long due to vegetative cloning. The visible tree is relatively young, but it is part of an older root system that dates back thousands of years. The trunk of the tree may die and regrow multiple times, but the tree's root system remains intact and in turn sprouts another trunk about every 600 years.