Well, my oldest orchid plant is less than 15 years old...
I am afraid I will not have the chance to see if some of my orchids will last more than one thousand years...
I still have my first orchid, a jungle collected Paph. venustum that I bought in 1974. So it is probably about 35 years old. I have a division of Paph. Clair de Lune 'Edgard van Belle', AM/RHS-AOS. The entire clone is almost 80 years old. I got my piece in 1979. Other kinds of old orchids usually succumb to disease, but there are some very old Paphs around.
Among individual plants, the award for longevity usually goes to Pinus longaeva, a kind of bristlecone pine. some of these are 1200 years old. Some specimens of Welwitschia mirabilis, the Rube Goldberg invention among plants, are estimated at 2000 years old. There are forests of quaking aspen out West which may be older. These forests are considered all one clone.
Iris
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
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