How long do orchids live?

[Zabeta]

Hi everyone,

I was curious about how long orchids can potentially live, whether in the wild or in cultivation. I've heard that they're "potentially immortal," but after a basic internet search I feel that that's probably not true. We know that some are a couple hundred years old, though.

I'm wondering, for those who are very experienced with and knowledgeable about orchids, what your thoughts are about this. What is the oldest orchid in your collection? Have you read anything in particular about orchid lifespans?

Just curious!

[Ray]

I am comfortable assuming that monopodial orchids have some finite life span - whatever that may be, but when you consider the fact that sympodial orchids can be divided and shared over and over again, "potential immortality" is not out of the question.

One might argue that clones carry on immortality, too...

[Bud]

I have an 11 year old Vanda sanderiana that gave me two keikis. When the youngest keiki bloomed last year, the mother started to lose its leaves and expire. I am left with two plants still attached to the mother but each produced many fat roots on each of their own.
My Cattleya Abe Kher is an heirloom from 1954 that I got seven pseudo bulbs in bloom from a wedding centerpiece five years ago....for every two new growths one old pseudo bulb dries up and dies....it blooms twice a year

[Optimist]

As I understand it, you must see an orchid as you would a lawn of grass. An individual blade or tiller erupts from the base, grows, and replaces dead growth. One seedling of grass has the potential to become a single plant a mile across, but it rarely happens. What people think of as "an orchid" is onlt the leaf of a plant that could be much larger under the right conditions, but those perfect conditions are rare.

[SilverShaded]

Its not clear to me what role telomeres play in plant longevity, cells generally dont seem to be able to divide forever.

[Zabeta]

Originally Posted by SilverShaded

Its not clear to me what role telomeres play in plant longevity, cells generally dont seem to be able to divide forever.

This was my impression, too, after looking around. I'm not a scientist, though, and I haven't done *real* research, so I don't feel confident to speak about it. But I was under the impression that the dividing was subject to small errors of DNA, leading to degeneration over time.

[duet_mimas]

Originally Posted by Zabeta

This was my impression, too, after looking around. I'm not a scientist, though, and I haven't done *real* research, so I don't feel confident to speak about it. But I was under the impression that the dividing was subject to small errors of DNA, leading to degeneration over time.

You're talking about DNA replication, where DNA polymerase replicates a DNA strand. It can, place the wrong nucleotide on the original strand of DNA. But some polymerases have the ability to catch these errors and fix them.

Telomeres are a string of nonsense nucleotides that go at the end of the copy strands of DNA, when DNA polymerase gets to the end of DNA it can leave off a few bits of nucleotides. Telomeres are there as a buffer to protect the important bits of DNA from being deleted. But! There is an enzyme called telomerase which goes in behind polymerase and adds those extra bits of chopped off DNA.

Don't quote me on this but I think that telomerase is there to help with the growing up part and as we start to age telomerase looses its efficacy and the telomeres get deleted.

A scary fact is that some cancers use telomerase.

As far as orchids are concerned I am not sure how similar animal DNA replication is to plants. One of the major differences is that plants have cell walls... they also make cellulose which can help with being ridged (trees). If I were to apply animal DNA replication to orchids than I would say that orchids have excellent polymerase error checking and telomerase.

I can research this but its late.

Oh! and it should be known that based on the way orchids process light they have a more similar pathway to that of cacti. And I've heard of cacti living for hundreds of years in the desert.

[Paphluvr]

Before I lost a substantial portion of my collection in a divorce, I had a plant that purportedly was division of a awarded primary hybrid from the 1800's.

The Paph. concolor in my collection right now is a piece of one I bought about 45 yrs ago.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Paphluvr, you have me beat! I have 3 Cattleya alliance plants that are mere youngsters by comparison. I have only had them 30 years.

[SilverShaded]

I have plants going back to the 70's. And they probably originated decades before that.

It seems that plants that can be divided theoretically can live for many centuries or thousands of years. However, i did read that one of the 'oldest' living trees that spread by suckers, had lost the ability to produce viable seed through genetic changes over the centuries.

Now I cant find the reference so hopefully somebody can confirm or deny that, but anyway most of our plants will live as long as we let them...

Edit: the methusaleh tree has just had babies so the above reference appears to have been wrong.

Also apparently there is an 80,000 year old clonal colony of trees, so maybe plants can just keep dividing for a very very long time...