Estimating the age of orchids
 

Is there any reliable way to estimate the age of common orchids such as phal, dendrobium, oncidium, cymb, etc?

I'm not sure there really is.

In Phals the bottom leaves drop off with age and the stem left behind by those can be shortened so you can't really use that. With orchids like Dens and oncs they can be divided... so a small plant may be a division of quite an old plant.

If the plant has a registered name and is a division, not a mericlone, one can estimate closer to its age by finding the year it was registered with the RHS. But even then, some plants are registered many years after the original cross was made.

However, Rosie is right, it is not easy to tell with looking at a plant, nor is it particularily of value to know. The important thing to know is if it is old enough to need dividing or potting up and the plant will tell you that! :biggrin:

The time it is fun to find out the "age" of a plant, is if you have an old paph. or other genera where mericlones are not possible, and find out it was registered by the RHS in 1890 and you know you then have a piece of the original, even though your piece had actually not been formed yet! :waving

CL

I have a division off of a 50yo L. anceps, so I'd suspect that what Rosie and CL say is true.
My division however does not look like a young plant, the leaves and rhizome are certainly that of an old plant, so maybe you can guesstimate, but it's hard to say.

From what I recall, plants are immortal, in that they can grow indefinitely under the right conditions. I have a small begonia that was given to me by my first botany professor, maybe 35 years ago. It was, and still is, a cutting of a cutting of a cutting....you get the idea. It was something like 40 years old when I got it.
I worked with tissue culture cell lines that were 18 years old and just continually propagated.
So, I guess theoretically an orchid could grow indefinitely as you took division after division from it. :)
Too bad there isn't a way to tell how old, like counting the rings on trees.

The reason why I asked is that I heard older plants can flower more and much more adaptable to environmental change. Is this true?

Well a mature plant can definitely produce more blooms than a younger one. And the bigger the plant is the more reserves it has to fall back upon should something be lacking in it's culture, as well as having more new growth every year that can produce blooms. That's why many people don't divide plants unless they become an unmanageable size.

I agree with WhiteRabbit.

An imature plant, or a small division of a plant is likely to have less flowers and be more easily affected by adverse conditions... basically imature and small plants need more care.

But once they are a certain size and are mature, then the age does not matter any more. The size and age at which a plant is mature will vary from orchid to orchid. So it's then a case of finding out about that orchid to find out what it's 'adult' size should be.