In Plants
Plants are referred to as annuals which live only one year, biennials which live two years, and perennials which live longer than that. The longest-lived perennials, woody-stemmed plants such as trees and bushes, often live for hundreds and even thousands of years (one may question whether or not they may die of old age). A giant sequoia, General Sherman is alive and well in its third millennium. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine called Methuselah is 4,843 years old (as of 2012) and the Bristlecone Pine called Prometheus was a little older still, at least 4,844 years (and possibly as old as 5,000 years), when it was cut down in 1964. The oldest known plant (possibly oldest living thing) is a clonal Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) tree colony in the Fishlake National Forest called Pando (tree) at about 80,000 years.
Read more about this topic: Maximum Life Span
Famous quotes containing the word plants:
“Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“When the
Marne flowed by the plants nodded
And above the glistering Gila
A sunset as beautiful as the Athabasca
Stammered. The Zambezi chimed. The Oxus
Flowed somewhere.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)